Gass 

Book ,S 55Ws>_ 



i 




E. M. Wood. 



THE PEERLESS ORATOR 



The Rev. Matthew Simpson, D. D., LL. D. 

Bishop of the 
METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH 



ILLUSTRATED 




REV. E. M: WOOD, D. D., LL. D. 

Author of "How the Bible was made," "Beginnings of Faith and Science," "Schools 
for Spirits," Bishops and Legislation," &c, &c. 



1909 



FOR SALE AT BOOK DEPOSITORY, 105 FIFTH AVENUE 
AND PITTSBURGH PRINTING CO., 518 7th AVENUE, PITTSBURGH, PA. 




COPYRIGHT BY 
EZRA MORGAN WOOD 

1908 



© 

JUL 22 1909- 



'V«a rrom 

ght Office. 
4 1910 



Mr. H. J. Heinz. 



A great admirer of Bishop Simpson; and almost a life- 
long friend of the author; a successful organizer and a 
philanthropic business man who has made the publication 
of this work possible. 



So Off fnttttg prople m a 
Stimulus and a <&w£e 

10 #M«?ft6 



Waxk& by % Autlynr. 

Price 

1 The Peerless Orator, Matthew Simpson $1 50 

2 Beginnings of Faith and Science 1.00 

3 Schools for Spirits 50 

4 How the Bible Was Made 1 00 

5 Bishops and Legislation 50 

7 Methodism and the Centennial of American 

Independence 1 00 

8 A Splendid Wreck 1 00 

9 Christian Science, not a Christian Church.. 25 

10 The Jews and the New Testament 25 

11 Mormonism, Should It Be Protected 15 



12 Associate Editor Cyclopedia of Methodism . . . 



CONTENTS 



Page 

Foreword 
Introduction 

I. Forebears and Native Heath 17-26 

II. Scholar and Educator 27-42 

III. Letter Writer and Editor 43-54 

IV. Literary Works 55-64 

V. Personal Appearance and Habits 65-73 

VI. Graduate Physician 74-81 

VII. College Associates 82-98 

VIII. Political Friends 99-108 

IX. Religious Life— A Parallel 109-117 

X. Popular Preacher 118-132 

XL Eminent Bishop 133-149 

XII. Orator and Platform Speaker 150-171 

XIII. Changes of Mind 172-185 

XIV. Sunset Hours 186-193 

XV. Personal Tribute 194-198 

XVI. Some Post Mortem Honors 199-206 




Bishop Simpson. 



ILLUSTRATIONS 



Opposite 
page 

E. M. Wood 1 

H. J. Heinz 4 

Bishop Simpson 8 

Mrs. Bishop Simpson 12 . 

Sarah Simpson 16 

Matthew Simpson 20 

Where the Bishop was born 24 

Madison College 28 

First M. E. Church, Cadiz, 32 

H. B. Bascom 84 

Professor Hamnette 88 

Charles Elliott 90 

William Hunter 94 

Abraham Lincoln 98 

Henry Clay 102 

Salmon P. Chase 104 

Edwin M. Stanton 108 

Bishop's Home in Pittsburgh 148 

Christ Church 160 

Sir George Williams 180 

Smithfield Street Church 186 

Centennial Medallion 190 

Liberty St. Church 194 

Home in Philadelphia 198 

Bronze Statue 204 



Foreword 



Few names in Methodist history, since the 
days of John Wesley, are as widely and favorably 
known as that of Bishop Matthew Simpson. As 
a preacher he had no superior and few equals. 
The announcement that he would preach in a 
given church or lecture in a public hall always 
crowded either to its utmost capacity however 
spacious. Who, that heard his sermon on 
"When the morning stars sang together and 
all the sons of God shouted for joy", or his ora- 
tion on "The Future of our Country" can forget 
the spell and resistless power of his eloquence. 
His fame as a preacher and orator was equally 
great in America and in England. As a bishop 
he was trusted and honored for his executive 
ability and loved and revered for his saintliness of 
character. Distance of time does not diminish his 
fame or detract from his greatness. 

Such a life should be constantly held up as a 
splendid ideal to inspire the ministry of the 
Church to strive for the highest possible at- 
tainments in character and effectiveness. The 
author of this volume, Dr. E. M. Wood, by 



intimate association with Bishop Simpson for 
a considerable period as assistant in the prepara- 
tion of the Encyclopedia of Methodism had 
special facilities for studying his subject, and has 
given a concise and yet sufficiently comprehen- 
sive portraiture of the man, the minister, the 
bishop and the masterful orator. This book is 
worthy of a place in every Methodist home 
and especially in the library of every minister of 
the Methodist Episcopal Church, and of any 
other home or library. 

REV. A. B. LEONARD, D. D. 
New York City. 




Mrs. Bishop Simpson. 



Introduction 



Contrary to what may be the general opinion, 
to write a correct autobiography is a most diffi- 
cult task, first for the reason that if the writer 
is very modest he may place less emphasis upon 
those great facts most meritorious, and second, 
what might seem most interesting to himself 
might not appear so to others. 

And to write a biography is no easy task. The 
writer may be almost overwhelmed with the 
abundance of material, and to select from this 
material such as will set forth the true life prop- 
erly requires great care and impartial wisdom. 
Every public man especially, owes it to his suc- 
cessors to leave his estate in as satisfactory con- 
dition as possible, and none the less so of his 
literary estate. But in both cases most men are 
very prone to postponement. Such persons 
often excuse themselves on the ground that 
they are too busy for such work, but we owe it 
to those who shall come after us to leave our 
best thoughts and works in as complete and sys- 
tematic form as possible. If all inventions, dis- 
coveries and valuable acquisitions were scat- 



tered, lost or destroyed, at our death, how ex- 
ceedingly slow and difficult would be the ad- 
vancement of our civilization. 

In preparing this sketch we have often found 
a most unfortunate hiatus where we greatly de- 
sired a fullness of material. A large volume 
could be made up from the opinions of eminent 
men who heard him at different times and places 
but these would hardly fairly portray the real 
life of Bishop Simpson. And what a uniformity 
there would be in these statements as most of 
them would speak of his wonderful power over 
men either in the pulpit or on the platform. 
Hence we have chosen to speak of some of those 
characteristics not so generally known but not 
forgetting, however, to mention the others also 
with due fullness. And reasons, I think, will 
be found in the following chapters why it has 
been to me a most delightful task to which I 
have set my hand. But I have not written of 
him who is just a little and for a little while be- 
yond our vision, out of gratitude and love only 
but as a worthy example and a holy inspiration 
for young men with poor personal and social 
environments but with an indomitable will and 
unflagging perseverance that they may attain 
to like eminence in usefulness and power. 



Besides a general acquaintance with Bishop 
Simpson it was my good fortune to be with him 
in his own home in Philadelphia and to enjoy 
the hospitality of his family and to work with 
him in his large library in the preparation of the 
"Cyclopedia of Methodism". Thus I came to 
know the real, the inner life, of this great man. 
I desire here to acknowledge my indebtedness 
to Dr. George R. Crooks for his "Life of Bishop 
Simpson". But I have chosen a different outline 
and many new facts by which to present the 
predominant characteristics of this eminent 
scholar, preacher, bishop and orator. The "Cy- 
clopedia of Methodism" has been very helpful 
in the preparation of this work. 

E. M. WOOD. 



Sarah Simpson, 
The Bishop's Mother. 



The Peerless Orator 



CHAPTER I. 
Forebears and Native Heath. 

li t OT many authors in this hurrying age will agree 
\ with Horace when he says that your literary 
compositions should be kept from the public 
eye at least for nine years. But it is true that many 
important works have been much longer in prepara- 
tion than his time limit. Perhaps more will agree 
with Carlyle who says that biography is the most 
universally pleasant, the most universally profitable, 
of all reading as biography is the only true history. 
Indeed there could be no history without biography 
for it is man-made. The best illustrations and in- 
spirations come from the reading of real and not fic- 
tional biography. And perhaps no man knew better 
than Carlyle, not by the reason of his failures, but be- 
cause of his wide reading, that a well written life is 
almost as rare as a well spent one, but as the latter 
does not discourage us from trying to live the best we 
can so the former should not prevent us from placing 
on record a life whose influence may be emphasized 



18 THE PEERLESS ORATOR. 



and extended to new lives yet to appear in the history 
of the race. But Emerson greatly comforts and in- 
structs us when he says that great geniuses have al- 
ways the shortest biographies. 

The law of heredity is not invariable and in- 
exorable, otherwise there could not be varieties or 
species. This law has permitted the wild rose to be 
developed into more than 300 luscious varieties. 
Moral heredity as is now believed holds for good as 
well as for evil. The Bible rightly interpreted rec- 
ognizes the two-fold operation of this law. There 
are no less than twelve instances where it speaks of 
the consequences of evil upon descendants. But on 
the other side it speaks of the mercy of the Lord 
unto children's children. But examples and customs 
are almost as persistent as the law of heredity. Com- 
mon law holds about as mighty a sway as statute 
law. As a rule at about 35, if not before, ancestral 
traits and peculiarities will begin to show themselves. 
No philosopher ever uttered a wiser sentiment than 
that "no man liveth unto himself." "We must not 
press the theory of heredity too far. There are so 
many missing links that it is doubtful if it is worthy 
of the name of a chain. We must remember that 
while in some cases it is an encouraging law, in oth- 
ers it is equally discouraging. We challenge the 



FOREBEARS AND NATIVE HEATH 19 



statement even as a general proposition, and more 
so if it be made universal, that children inherit their 
moral bent from the mother. Facts as we read them 
do not sustain the affirmation. 'Blood will tell' we 
admit, but whose blood, that of the father or the 
mother, the male or the female, no naturalist or 
moralist can determine. 

Samuel's mother was a good praying mother, 
but the mother of Joseph and Benjamin had her 
household gods. Providence finds great men 
when they are greatly needed; a Washington for 
independence, a Lincoln for emancipation, a 
Grant for victory and a McKinley for expansion. 
Young men trusted and proved in lower positions 
are called to higher and more responsible work. 
Samuel from being janitor of the tabernacle to 
ancient kings and deliver prophecies and rescu- 
ing a nation. 

When God calls we must be patient and ac- 
cept the unfoldings of His purpose. Not every 
boy would keep his temper if called up four times 
in one night before the purpose was made 
known, as was Samuel. Self-possession is the 
master key to the temple of fame. 

Readiness for duty is a prophecy of promo- 
tion and success; ready cash gets the best bar- 



20 THE PEERLESS ORATOR. 



gain ; ready talent will first step upon the throne ; 
the ready speaker carries the multitude. The 
'initiative' has won for the American soldier uni- 
versal admiration. 'Here am I' should be pla- 
carded on the breast of every young Christian. 

In the face of the greatest combinations of cap- 
ital ever known, of the largest number of organi- 
zations among men, of almost bewildering me- 
chanical appliances, individualism was never 
such a potent factor as now. It is the man be- 
hind the gun, the man with the hoe, the man 
must be counted on, the man is not lost in the 
complex machinery of society. In all the whirr 
of machinery, in all the vast crowds of society, 
in all movements, moral, industrial or religious, 
stand forth young men, under your own banner, 
proudly saying 'Here am I.' " 

In Europe the tendency is to trace lineage on 
an ascending scale, but in America on a descend- 
ing scale, perhaps not always wisely. 

Bishop Simpson's grandfather on the father's 
side was from England, and for some time was 
in the service of the English Government as a 
horse dragoon. Later with his family he emi- 
grated to Tyrone County, Ireland, and died in 
middle life, leaving five sons and one daughter, 



Uncle Matthew Simpson. 



FOREBEARS AND NATIVE HEATH 21 



Andrew, John, William, Matthew, James and 
Mary. In 1793 the widowed grandmother and 
family came to America and landing at Balti- 
more they removed to Huntingdon, Pennsyl- 
vania, and William located in Erie County, Penn- 
sylvania but most of the family settled in Har- 
rison County, Ohio. 

The bishop's father, James, the youngest 
of the family, was a man of great energy and 
business tact and was for some time a clerk in 
Pittsburg with John Wrenshall, the family re- 
siding here for a short time when the bishop was 
a small boy. After this Wrenshall began the 
manufacture of weaver's reeds, and with the 
bishop's uncle, Matthew Simpson, they set up a 
store with these goods in Cadiz, Ohio, with John 
Wrenshall, who was a merchant, as partner in 
Pittsburg. He was an Englishman and is sup- 
posed to be the first local preacher of Methodism 
in the town. He resided on Market Street and 
owned an orchard in the rear of his house, where 
preaching was sometimes held. 

Grandmother Simpson was a woman of won- 
derful memory and more than ordinary intellect. 
John Wesley visited Ireland annually for sev- 
eral years, and on one of these tours she heard 



22 THE PEERLESS ORATOR. 



him preach shortly after she became a widow, 
and she was converted. From that time the 
entire family attended the Methodist Church 
and at an early age they all united with that 
society. She had been raised a Presbyterian, 
but from this on, although she lived past ninety, 
she was happy and cheerful and lived to see all 
her children occupying respected positions. 

James Simpson, the bishop's father, married 
Sarah Tingley, June i, 1806, when they had all 
lived for a brief time on Short Creek, Jefferson 
County, and then removed to Cadiz, Ohio, but 
his health failing, he moved to Pittsburg and 
resided on Fourth Street between Market and 
Ferry, where he died of consumption, June 15, 
1812, when Matthew, the bishop, was six days 
less than one year old. The widow soon re- 
turned to Cadiz, Ohio. 

His mother, Sarah Tingley, was born near 
Stony Brook, about twenty miles from South 
Amboy, New Jersey, May 23, 1781. Her father, 
Jeremiah Tingley, served in the Revolutionary 
War after which he located for a number of 
years in Winchester, Virginia, and in 1801, 
moved to Ohio and settled on Short Creek near 
Hopewell, Jefferson County. They were Bap- 



FOREBEARS AND NATIVE HEATH 23 



tists, but all finally joined the Methodist Church. 
Here Jeremiah Tingley, the bishop's maternal 
grandfather, died. The Tingleys were well edu- 
cated. William, the bishop's maternal uncle, 
was clerk of the Court of Harrison County for 
thirty years, in which office the bishop spent 
much time as assistant clerk. Joseph Tingley, 
Ph. D., a cousin, was born in Cadiz, Ohio, in 
1822, and he entered Allegheny College but 
finished in Asbury, now DePau, University, 
Greencastle, Indiana, in 1846. He was then in 
1849, after serving as tutor, elected professor 
of Natural Science. The other cousin of the 
bishop was Jeremiah Tingley, Ph. D., who was 
born in Cadiz, Ohio, in 1826, and entered Asbury 
University and graduated in 1850. After teach- 
ing for some time in a female seminary, he was 
elected professor of Natural Science and Chem- 
istry in Allegheny College. Afterwards he was 
professor of Chemistry in the West Penn Medi- 
cal College in Pittsburg. These are some of 
the eminent persons on his mother's side. 

The family of which the bishop was the young- 
est and was the only son are as follows : Hattie, 
the eldest, was born in Cadiz, April 3, 1807. In 
1829 she married Mr. George McCullough who 



24 THE PEERLESS ORATOR. 



afterwards bought a farm near Liverpool, Ohio, 
Here the bishop's mother and his uncle Mat- 
thew lived with them and all were engaged at 
odd times in the manufacture of neck stocks for 
which there was a good trade at that time. 
Afterwards the McCulloughs removed to Cin- 
cinnati, where for many years he was a success- 
ful merchant. The second sister, Elizabeth, was 
born February 2, 1809. She was married to a 
physician by the name of Curtis W. Scoles, who 
became a minister of the Pittsburg conference 
in 1842 and died in 1847 having served Johns- 
town, Ligonier, Elizabeth, Carmichels and 
Brownsville. Being of a delicate nature she died 
of consumption when only twenty-four years of 
age, and was buried in Cadiz. 

The elder sister was five years old, the other 
sister three years old, and the bishop only one 
year old when their father died. Thus was the 
mother left with a responsible charge besides 
the care of an unmarried uncle, a man of deli- 
cate health, who made his home with them. No 
wonder that the bishop remained but two 
months at Madison College. With his deep af- 
fection for his mother and the other members 
of the family, he could not afford to be sup- 



FOREBEARS AND NATIVE HEATH 25 



ported by them but must go home to help sup- 
port them. His father had purchased a home in 
the center of the town of Cadiz, and was suc- 
cessful in business until his health failed. The 
house in which they lived was a small, unpainted 
frame house of four or five rooms. The house 
was later removed from its first location, and 
although a plain one-story and a half house, was 
probably as good as the average houses at that 
time. 

What a famous city is Cadiz ! As early as 
1809, two years before the bishop was born, we 
find among the names and occupations of its 
citizens, James Simpson, reedmaker, and Wil- 
liam Tingley, school teacher. Later here were 
Hon. Edwin M. Stanton, Lincoln's Secretary of 
War, and Hon. John A. Bingham, the prosecutor 
of Lincoln's murderer. These remind us of the 
saying of Carlyle, as Bishop Simpson also was 
born here, "great men are not born among 
fools". Bishop Simpson had a paternal uncle 
who resided in Harrison County from whom de- 
scended John Simpson, Mary A. Simpson, wife 
of Mr. J. C. Patterson, now of Cadiz, and Mat- 
thew W. Simpson and William Simpson. Some 
of these long ago moved to Illinois, some to 



26 THE PEERLESS ORATOR. 



Kansas and others to California. Young Simp- 
son might have thought like Tennyson when 
he said, "I believe the discipline of those who 
are to live in the coming age is different from 
that of any previous one. I can only look at 
the strange providences in my own life with 
wonder as to what they were intended to fit me 
for". 



SCHOLAR AND EDUCATOR. 



CHAPTER II. 

Schorr and Educator. 

Sometimes it is seen that a precocious intellect 
is indicative of a feeble body, but that such an 
intellect should so overcome the weakness of 
the body as to live long and do a vast amount 
of exhausting work approaches close to a mod- 
ern miracle. And yet such was the life of Bishop 
Simpson. Without assistance and before he 
was three years of age he had learned the alpha- 
bet, to spell and to read. He said he was aston- 
ished when ministers stopping at his mother's 
home should even ask him if he could read, and 
before he was five years of age he had learned 
the multiplication table and the elements of 
arithmetic. Here we see the early beginnings 
of what was afterwards shown in him, namely, 
a most accurate speller, a rapid reader, an expert 
mathematician and a thorough linguist. When 
seven years of age he attended school a few 
months, studying arithmetic and grammar, and 
this was followed by a short period in a select 
school, studying grammer and geography. Next 
he attended an academy in Cadiz under the cele- 



28 THE PEERLESS ORATOR. 



brated physician Dr. McBean, to learn the ancient 
languages. He believed with the ancients that the 
morning hour had gold in its mouth. Dr. McBean 
died in 1875 and the bishop wrote the widow 
a beautiful tribute to his memory. Between 
five and ten years of age he had access to a public 
library in his native town and had read a large 
number of volumes on travel, history and biog- 
raphy. He has often told me that from his 
earliest recollection he regarded writing as the 
merest drudgery, and this greatly handicapped 
him, especially while in the editorial office. He 
was sent to a private tutor to improve his pen- 
manship and his long experience in the County 
Clerk's office greatly improved his handwriting, 
so that to the last of his life he wrote a fair hand, 
but never without the feeling of drudgery. This 
was also at a great expense to him so that in 
nearly all of his public life he employed a sten- 
ographer. 

He especially disliked declamation, reciting 
the language and thoughts of another, and to 
escape this he often traded with the students, 
preferring essays or original orations. His 
memory, however, was marvelous and at one 
time while in Madison College, he recited fifteen 




Madison College, 
Uniontown, Pa. 




SCHOLAR AND EDUCATOR. 29 



propositions in geometry and at another twenty- 
four, and this wonderful faculty rendered him 
good service in recalling the conjugations, the 
declensions and the vocabulary of the ancient 
and modern languages. He sc 1 dom memorized 
his sermons, and so when he delivered one such 
sermon his friends told him that it was a great 
failure and he never attempted it again. 

A work on surveying, embracing geometry 
and trigonometry was put into his hands when a 
boy, and it gave him great delight and was soon 
mastered without a teacher, except an occasional 
suggestion from his uncle Matthew. 

Simpson, who was a fine mathematician and a 
superior linguist, when only eight years of age 
began the study of the German and soon read 
the German Bible through, and when at family 
worship he would read the German and his uncle 
or his mother would read the English Bible, and 
they would compare the translations. After- 
wards when holding German Conferences he oc- 
casionally preached in German. 

From his practice as clerk he often listened 
to famous men before the courts, and thus ac- 
quired not only the methods of legal procedure, 
but the general principles of law which served 



THE PEERLESS ORATOR. 



him well in his official position as president of the 
general and annual conferences, and in the vari- 
ous business church committees of which he was 
a member. 

He had an uncle, Tingley, who for several 
years was editor and publisher of the county 
paper, and he often assisted in every depart- 
ment of the paper, even to setting type, as well 
as writing editorials, and this knowledge was 
of great use to him when called upon to edit the 
Western Christian Advocate, as well as in pub- 
lishing his books. 

The bishop began the study of Latin with 
two young men who were boarders in his moth- 
er's home and attending the academy, and such 
was his success that in about three months he 
studied Ross' Latin grammar, read Historia 
Sacra, four books of Caesar and a large part of 
Cataline. He then entered the academy and 
finished his full course in Latin and began the 
study of Greek grammar. In a little over four 
months he had finished the Graeca Minora, the 
first volume of Graeca Majora, part of the second 
volume, and a number of books of Homer, thus 
finishing what was then regarded by the col- 
leges a complete course in Latin and Greek in 



SCHOLAR AND EDUCATOR. 31 



about seven months of actual work. Besides 
these studies under the direction of his uncle he 
studied French, Spanish and Italian, besides 
botany, chemistry and geology. When only 
fifteen years of age, his uncle, having opened a 
select school, he became his assistant often tak- 
ing entire management of the school and hearing 
advanced classes in the sciences, mathematics 
and the classics. 

After this time Dr. Charles Elliott, a professor 
in Madison College, was visiting at the home of 
his mother and offered him a position as teacher 
in that institution. Dr. Homer J. Clark, the 
financial agent of that college, was about this 
time visiting Cadiz, and also urged him to go to 
that school. Uniontown, Pa., the seat of Madi- 
son College, was ninety miles from Cadiz, Ohio. 
He determined to make the journey on foot, 
partly on account of economy, and also as no 
stage road went through Cadiz. So, tying up a 
little bundle of clothes and a few books and with 
eleven dollars and twenty-five cents in his pocket, 
he started and traveling the whole distance on 
foot he arrived after three days on the third day 
of November, 1828. He was then a young man 
of seventeen, and Dr. Elliott received him cor- 



THE PEERLESS ORATOR. 



dially and by invitation he boarded with the 
family in company with Simon Elliott, then a 
student, and brother of Charles. He at once 
commenced reviewing Hebrew, Greek and Latin, 
and geometry, and he assisted Dr. Elliott in the 
languages and often heard all of his classes in 
the absence of the doctor. At family prayer it 
was the custom to read from the Hebrew, the 
Septuagint, the Vulgate, the French and the 
German, each one noting the various readings 
and discussions followed. Here at college he 
read Vergil, Cicero, Livy and Tacitus. He said 
that Dr. Elliott told him that he would need no 
instruction from him in Latin or Greek. He 
was soon elected a tutor in the college. Here 
were about forty students in the classics and 
thirty in the English course. Here he also con- 
tinued his rigid rule of early rising in November 
and December at five o'clock, four and some- 
times as early as half past three, and reviewing 
his studies and recitations for the day. 

Now came a great crisis in the bishop's life, 
having been in Madison College less than two 
months. His success in college was most re- 
markable, but his thoughts would ever and anon 
turn to the home he had left. The little property 



SCHOLAR AND EDUCATOR. 



left by his father in support of the family was 
melting away, and his uncle was in poor health. 
His oldest sister was to be married soon, his 
youngest sister was in poor health, and his 
mother becoming very frail, and he felt it his 
duty to give up his college work and return 
to his home where at least he would not be a 
tax on them for his support but where he might 
be a comfort and a help to them. And so he 
wrote to his uncle an unusually long and very 
wise letter for a boy of seventeen years, asking 
for his advice in the dilemma. He said that he 
was comfortably situated there and therefore 
was well satisfied to stay if they were comfort- 
ably situated at home. He decided to return 
home during the holidays, which he did again 
walking the whole distance. He said that he 
found such a change in the circumstances of the 
family as seemed to make it necessary that he 
should remain at home. He was obliged reluct- 
antly to give up his college pursuits and the 
tutorship to which he had been promoted. He 
again assisted in school at Cadiz, and for three 
years pursued the study of medicine, accumu- 
lated a medical library, and commenced the 
practice. The courts had offered him an official 



34 THE PEERLESS ORATOR. 



position, but he finally declined all else and en- 
tered the ministry, and was appointed to St. 
Clairsville Circuit, and the second year was sent 
to Pittsburg. He, however, did not give up his 
ambition to complete his college course and so 
arranged with Rev. Dr. Bruce, president of the 
Western University of Pennsylvania, to attend 
his lectures on moral science, and they would 
give him the degree of A. M. He entered upon 
the course of lectures, but on his way home one 
morning he was informed that Allegheny Col- 
lege had conferred the degree upon him. 

In 1837 he was elected professor of Natural 
Science in Allegheny College, Meadville, Pa., 
and in the same year was elected vice-president 
of the faculty. This change in the faculty 
seemed necessary as Dr. Ruter, then president, 
was about to resign and undertake missionary 
work in Texas, then just opened to Protestant- 
ism by annexation to the United States. Dr. 
Homer J. Clark was elected president and re- 
tained the professorship of mathematics. Before 
this Dr. Ruter had been invited to the presi- 
dency of La Grange College, Alabama, and he 
agreed to accept if Bishop Simpson would take 
a position under him in the faculty. This he de- 



SCHOLAR AND EDUCATOR. 35 



clined to do, and Dr. Ruter went to Texas in- 
stead. Simpson was required to teach besides 
the natural sciences some of the higher mathe- 
matics as surveying and navigation. At that 
time Professor G. W. Clark, a graduate of the 
college and later professor in Mount Union 
College, O., had charge of the Latin and Greek. 
Subsequently he became one of the three foun- 
ders of Mount Union College, Ohio, with O. N. 
Hartshorn and I. O. Chapman. At that time 
also Calvin Kingsley, another graduate of the 
college, afterward Bishop Kingsley, was tutor of 
some classes and Simpson evidently was pleased 
with his surroundings in the college. He said 
the main building was good, the library large, 
having 8,000 volumes, the laboratory fair, and 
the apparatus for natural science was excellent. 
Soon a graduate of West Point, Professor Alden, 
was elected to the chair of mathematics. He 
was an efficient mathematician, and his sister 
married the famous financier, Jay Cooke. In- 
side of two years he left for a professorship in 
Kentucky and Dr. Joseph Barker was elected in 
his place, and subsequently was elected president 
of the college. 

While in the college, Simpson had a class on 



36 THE PEERLESS ORATOR. 



Sunday afternoon in his house reading the Greek 
Testament, and among these persons were Gor- 
don Battelle, who was a famous preacher and 
educator in West Virginia, and also Frank H. 
Pierpont. These two men were members of the 
State Convention which organized the State of 
West Virginia. Battelle was appointed chaplain 
of a regiment during the Civil War and died of 
typhoid fever. Pierpont became a distinguished 
lawyer and then Governor of the State. These 
items briefly related will show the intelligent 
environment of Bishop Simpson while in Alle- 
gheny College. 

In the spring of 1838 he was elected professor 
in Asbury University, an institution just open- 
ing in Greencastle, Indiana. His health was 
poor and his cough troublesome, and so he de- 
clined but in the winter of the same year he was 
elected president and accepted to begin his work 
in the spring. At this time he was only twenty- 
seven years of age and how rapid had been his 
promotion ! There was perhaps no more diligent 
student in Allegheny College than Professor 
Simpson himself. He used his opportunities to 
the full for reading the Greek and Eatin fathers 
in the original and studying Origen, the Koran, 



SCHOLAR AND EDUCATOR. 37 



Calvin's Institutes and of all his readings he 
made copious notes, all of which experiences had 
generously fitted him for his new position as 
president of Asbury University. 

Simpson arrived in Greencastle in April, 1839. 
The charter for the University had been secured 
in 1837. The village then had about five hun- 
dred inhabitants, living mostly in one story and 
a half frame or log buildings. It was a county 
seat, and the little forbidding hotels were full, 
and such were the rude surroundings that I have 
heard the bishop and his wife say that never had 
they felt so despondent as that Saturday after- 
noon when they arrived in Greencastle with 
their only child, a little boy not yet two years 
old. Simpson soon found warm hearted friends, 
especially in the board of trustees, among whom 
was that humorist, the sanguine and hopeful 
Peter Cartwright. Here was only a preparatory 
school, meeting in a two-story building, two 
rooms below and one room above. Simpson 
took charge of the upper room where he heard 
his classes. At the opening of the summer ses- 
sion there were enrolled between seventy and 
eighty pupils. Surely here was occasion for the 
highest exercise of faith and hope. At the first 



38 THE PEERLESS ORATOR. 



commencement which took place in the new 
college chapel in September, 1840, besides the 
graduating exercises in the evening before the 
literary society Henry Ward Beecher, then at 
Indianapolis, delivered a characteristic address. 
The Governor of the State, David Wallace, gave 
the address of welcome and then delivered to 
Simpson the keys of the University and then 
followed the inaugural address. His uncle Mat- 
thew knew the time was coming for the prepa- 
ration and delivery of this address and he wrote 
him a very wise letter in which after referring 
to some embarrassments surrounding him at 
that time he said that there were few men if any 
who have had greater facility in acquiring a 
knowledge of literature, language and science 
than himself. He evidently expected him to 
excel in this momentous effort and after the 
occasion his uncle met Dr. Charles Elliott, who 
said that it was a great effort and such as he 
could not make. Rev. L. L. Hamline, after- 
wards bishop, said that the language of that ad- 
dress was fine, indeed upon the whole it was the 
best inaugural made by any Methodist preacher 
at the head of a college down to that time. The 
address fills about twenty-nine octavo pages and 



SCHOLAR AND EDUCATOR. 39 



in close type. We have space for only brief ex- 
tracts. He said: Your speaker cannot be in- 
sensible to the interest of this moment. The 
surrounding circumstances, the eloquently im- 
pressive charge, the high trust committed to his 
care, and the almost immeasurable responsibility 
connected with it stand vividly before me." The 
breadth of the address may in some measure be 
understood by the following points which he 
ably discussed and illuminated by a wealth of 
illustration from ancient and modern history, 
biography and natural science, and this when 
only twenty-nine years of age: 1, Man is the 
creature of education; 2, he is perpetually re- 
ceiving an education; 3, our only power is to 
choose in what the youth shall be educated; 4, 
individual character depends upon the kind of 
instruction received; 5, national character de- 
pends upon the same cause; 6, true fame and 
prosperity depend upon intellectual and moral 
culture ; 7, colleges and universities are essential 
to the improvement and diffusion of education, — 
a, colleges furnish the outlines of general knowl- 
edge ; b, colleges are places of severe mental 
discipline; c, colleges impart qualifications for 
communicating information in an interesting 



4 o THE PEERLESS ORATOR. 



and successful manner ; d, colleges cherish and 
cultivate dispositions for enlarged efforts to 
ameliorate the condition of man ; 8, colleges also 
elevate the standard of professional attainments; 
9, colleges are essential to the prosperity of 
common schools ; 10, colleges or high institutions 
of learning have always been the precursors of 
great improvements, whether in government or 
in the arts of civilized life. He closed with a 
brilliant peroration when he spoke of the bene- 
factors of the college as hovering over the classic 
halls and witnessing the preparations for noble 
action and gazing intently on those bright in- 
tellects which even in their youth sparkle with 
celestial fire and ardently burn to subdue the 
world to Christ and usher in the millennial glory. 

Thus President Simpson entered upon his ar- 
duous work also as professor of mathematics 
and natural science, with Cyrus Nutt, a grad- 
uate of Allegheny College in 1837, and presi- 
dent of the State University in 1861, as pro- 
fessor of Latin and Greek, and John B. Weakley 
as principal of the preparatory department, and 
here he continued from 1839 to I ^4^ a laborious 
period of nine years. A sample of his outside 
labors is given when he says he traveled four 



SCHOLAR AND EDUCATOR. 41 



hundred miles (on horseback) in twenty-three 
days and delivered thirty sermons and twenty- 
three lectures, and to do all this in those early 
times meant more of a sacrifice and hardship 
than can be imagined in these days of trolley 
cars and Pullman trains, and at the same time 
he was a man of feeble health but a man of in- 
domitable will and courage. 

During these nine years of excessive and ex- 
haustive labors, President Simpson's already 
poor health was breaking. During the summer 
of 1847 ne na d a severe attack of malaria fol- 
lowed by typhoid fever and his physicians ad- 
vised him either to change his residence or his 
occupation. He, therefore, notified the proper 
persons that he must resign. His intention was 
to return to the Pittsburg Conference, where his 
health had been much better, but at the general 
conference of 1848, he was elected editor of the 
Western Christian Advocate, succeeding his 
friend and collegiate associate, Dr. Charles 
Elliott. In the same year he was offered the 
presidency of Dickinson College, at Carlisle, Pa., 
which he respectfully declined. The next year 
he was offered the presidency of the Northwest- 
ern University, soon to be founded, and while 



THE PEERLESS ORATOR, 



declining this also, he, in conference with others, 
purchased the beautiful site now occupied by 
that famous institution. On his way to the gen- 
eral conference of 1852 he was offered the presi- 
dency of Wesleyan University, at Middletown, 
Connecticut, but this was refused, as he said he 
greatly preferred the regular pastorate. An- 
other invitation came, however, and that was 
to the presidency of Woodward College, Cin- 
cinnati, Ohio, which he also felt he must decline. 
But after he was elected bishop in 1852 he did 
not lose ardor for educational work. While he 
was residing in Pittsburg in 1853 he took a most 
active part in organizing Beaver College, and in 
1854 he was very prominent in founding the 
Pittsburg Female College. 

After he was elected editor and especially 
after his elevation to the Episcopal office, he felt 
the great loss of the opportunity of regular, 
classical and scientific study, and this the more 
because he had one of the largest private and select 
libraries which was peculiarly rich in the earlier 
great thought-masters of the world. 



LETTER WRITER AND EDITOR. 43 



CHAPTER III. 

Letter Writer and Editor. 

I have often heard the bishop remark that 
from boyhood he greatly disliked writing, indeed 
feeling it to be a drudgery. And this may in part 
account for the fact that the greater part of his 
sermons and lectures were extemporaneous, hav- 
ing only the most naked framework of an outline, 
and which he never took into the pulpit. His 
penmanship, however, was much superior to that 
of most public men. His uncle Tingley, who 
was clerk of the court, Cadiz, Ohio, for about 
thirty years, had a style of penmanship closely 
resembling script and doubtless this influenced 
Simpson in striving to imitate his handwriting, 
as he assisted in the clerk's office at irregular 
times for several years while yet a young man 
at home. To improve his penmanship, however, 
he took a special course in penmanship but he 
never gained a liking for writing, and hence he 
employed a stenographer the greater part of his 
public life. He never took pleasure in composi- 
tion in his school days, although he made at- 
tempts at poetical and prose and even humor- 



THE PEERLESS ORATOR. 



ous writings in order to cultivate a greater fa- 
cility of expression. Very little of such writings 
he preserved, perhaps thinking them of little 
value. When only nineteen years of age on his 
birthday he wrote a few lines of rhyme in ap- 
preciation of his uncle's kindness and services to 
him as his faithful moral and intellectual pre- 
ceptor. When twenty years of age he wrote a 
brief essay on electricity, another on optics, and an- 
other a description of the motions of the earth, 
which were read at different times before the Philo- 
sophical Society of Cadiz. 

His aversion to writing may account for the scar- 
city of his literary remains, and had it not been that 
reporters usually took down his sermons, lectures 
and addresses, there would have been much less 
found after his death. This dislike of writing may 
account in large part also for his brief and fragment- 
ary diary, although it is not uncommon among all 
classes of professional men, as in most cases the first 
entries in his diary were fuller and more consecu- 
tive, then began omissions of a month, then six 
months, and finally perhaps altogether. It is said 
that a Frenchman tried to kill himself when he learn- 
ed that his wife also was keeping a diary. Of course 
a diary is often tinged by certain moods and must 



LETTER WRITER AND EDITOR. 45 



not be trusted too far as a full statement of the case. 
He often deplored these omissions and made solemn 
promises of closer attention to this matter, only to be 
broken again. In one entry he says, "A month and 
a half have passed since my last entry, and nearly all 
the time I have been thinking that I would write." 

The same may be said of his letters, those of his 
earlier years being much longer and mostly of ele- 
gant composition. As his uncle Matthew Simpson 
had been his great foster father from early boyhood, 
most of his home correspondence was with him, and 
through him to his widowed mother and his two 
sisters. His uncle's letters to him, covering a period 
of about ten years, that is, from the age of nineteen 
to twenty-nine, for good English, for wise advice, 
and for condensation, have no superior in the Eng- 
lish language if indeed in any language. What a 
model letter-writer was therefore before this young 
man ! What troubles have come to society by reason 
of profuse and unchaste letter-writing? After 
Whittier read the Carlyle correspondence he de- 
stroyed most of his letters covering a period of 
fifty years. What torments came to John Wesley 
from his unseemly large correspondence? Not 
because it was unchaste, for it was not so, but 
because it was so largely with women which 



46 THE PEERLESS ORATOR. 



would naturally excite jealousy. Bishop Simp- 
son because of his national and international 
fame had a voluminous correspondence, but little 
of it was with women. And this was not so be- 
cause of a lack of personal ardor of tempera- 
ment, but because of his prudence and extreme 
caution. 

Full oft have letters caused the writers 
To curse the day they were inditers. 

The bundle of letters which I hold as a precious 
legacy, although written to me at a critical time in 
my religious and ministerial life, might be thrown 
into public print without revision and without harm 
to his memory or to myself. He knew that there 
was darkness around me that could be felt, and he 
knew the cause of it ; he knew that faith was lower- 
ing its shield and hope was dragging its anchor ; so 
he wrote that word which was sweeter to me than 
Doctor, Honorable, Governor, President, or Bishop, 
it was Remember, my bro titer, 

"The shadow of the wall 
Hides the tallest wheat of all." 

But Goethe says that letters are among the most 

significant memorials man can leave behind him. 

And Johnson says, that in a man's letters his soul 

lies naked; his letters are only the mirror of his 

breast. 



LETTER WRITER AND EDITOR. 47 



The uncle seemed to fear that after the bishop's 
marriage, which took place November 3, 1835 he 
might be inclined to forget him so on January 28, 
1836 the bishop wrote a most affectionate letter, in 
which occurs this beautiful sentiment : "Can I for- 
get that uncle who nursed me frequently in his arms, 
sang to me in gleeful mood, turned my infant mind 
to science, supplied me with books, introduced me to 
public life, filled my mind with moral and religious 
sentiments, and followed me from home with pray- 
ers and his fondest wishes, and to use his own ex- 
pression felt that his life was bound up in the lad's 
life? Can I forget that uncle? No, never, while 
life or thought or being lasts or immortality en- 
dures." In all epistolary correspondence we know 
of nothing so full of genuine fidelity and touching 
pathos. But in his letters to his wife, from whom 
he was so often absent, in fulfillment of official du- 
ties, are often found expressions of the purest affec- 
tion and conjugal regard. On one of his tours in 
Indiana in 1843, ne wrote his wife, then in Pitts- 
burg, just as he was entering his thirty-third year, 
"Oh, how time flies. Four years longer have I lived 
than I expected to, and yet how little have I done." 
When on a trip through Europe and the Holy Land, 
he had been detained in Beyrout by sickness and 



48 THE PEERLESS ORATOR. 



wrote his wife thus : "Twenty years ago this even- 
ing ! Yes, this very evening ! Do you remember the 
little group which met in that parlor in Penn Street, 
and do you remember the neat young woman with 
the blush of health upon her cheek who stood 
tremblingbeside a tall awkward looking man and 
there and then before God's minister (Zarah H. 
Coston) those solemn vows were said?" After 
his return he was sick in Pittsburg all through 
1858 where he had resided ever since he was 
elected bishop in 1852, many expected daily to 
learn of his death. 

In 1859 his family removed to Evanston, 111., and 
he was able to resume in part his official work. He 
wrote to his wife as follows : "When I look up at 
the moon these clear nights, I can fancy that it shines 
also on my loved ones on the shores of Lake Michi- 
gan as brightly as it shines on me here, not far from 
Lake Ontario." 

When fifty years of age, he writes to his wife : 
"The scenes of our childhood are fled, the sweet 
flowers and birds are gone * * * were this heart 
silent, other hearts would beat on, were these eyes 
closed, other eyes would still smile, and soon the very 
waves that cover me would sparkle back the starlight 
of heaven." Having been on the ocean so much, 



LETTER WRITER AND EDITOR. 49 



the moon, the stars, the kaleidescopic waves suggest 
to him beautiful figures of speech. 

In April, 1871, Bishop Simpson writes his wife 
who was then in Europe : "How strange is memory ! 
Above all the memories of affection ! They do not 
die. L,oved ones across the sea, loved ones across 
the great sea of the invisible, seem to come near. 
Back yonder in Greencastle, in that small house I 
can see our little boy (the first born) climbing on 
my knee. How plainly I see him now as I write 
with the tears falling from my eyes ; his round rosy 
cheek, his soft voice, and then, and then, that fore- 
head so smooth and cold that we kissed before we 
laid him away." (From Dr. Crooks). 

These extracts are sufficient to show the great 
heart of a great man and in a large sense they show 
also why he was great. He did not wear his heart 
on his sleeve, and it was only seldom that he wept in 
preaching, and only to very intimate friends did he 
make a disclosure of his deep affection. At his own 
table when some tender reference was made, I have 
seen the tears run down and fall upon his napkin, 
and yet perhaps no word would be spoken by him- 
self. 

The form of the bishop's letters is worthy of 
notice. The salutation was never fulsome, but al- 



THE PEERLESS ORATOR. 



ways in keeping with the position of the person ad- 
dressed, and wherever it could be properly written, 
his favorite expression, as I have said, was "My 
Dear Brother". In later years his letters were much 
briefer, but always clear and easily understood. He 
said at once what he thought was proper to say, 
with no repetition or unnecessary verbiage. And in 
closing, if acquainted, he never omitted a kind wish 
to be remembered to the family. Unless in case of 
some affliction he uniformly closed his letters by 
"Yours truly". But his signature was the most un- 
varying part of his letters. He never signed as Rev. 
or Bishop, but simply "M. Simpson", and the writ- 
ing was as uniform almost as if made by a stamp or 
a plate, which, however, he never used. As a rule 
although his letters were dictated he reread them all 
and then affixed his signature. He did not like to 
write or speak his own official title of bishop. Once 
in company with him we called upon a distinguished 
lady, and she not recognizing him, then he said my 
name is Simpson, and still not recognizing him, he 
said, Matthew Simpson, and she was still in the 
dark, and then he said, Bishop Simpson, and I saw a 
distinct flush come to his face as she began to apolo- 
gize. 



LETTER WRITER AND EDITOR. 5 1 



One can but wonder how a man who disliked writ- 
ing would ever consent to become an editor, but it 
was not the composition he disliked but the manual 
labor. And then stenography was not so common 
in 1848 when he was elected editor of the Western 
Christian Advocate at Cincinnati. He never was a 
frequent contributor to the journals of his day. 
During his visit to the Holy Land, he wrote several 
articles for the church papers, which were eagerly 
read by his friends, as he had such a keen observa- 
tion of men and manners and of the beautiful in na- 
ture, art and architecture. When elected editor no 
one questioned his scholarly ability, but some feared 
lest his lack of public writing should prove him to 
be unsuited for the place. Besides this he was fol- 
lowing an editor of great learning and favorably 
known throughout the country. And again the 
church and the nation were in a state of feverish if 
not of delirious agitation. 

The bishop was a member of the General Con- 
ference in 1844, when the separation between the 
church north and south took place, and he had heard 
it more than hinted that a division of the church 
would lead to a disunion of the states. Already Cal- 
houn had proposed a president for the north and one 
for the south, and Dr. Capers of the south had al- 



52 THE PEERLESS ORATOR. 



ready proposed a general conference for the north- 
ern conferences and one for the southern confer- 
ences. The church south had only been organized 
about three years when Simpson was elected editor 
and there were many unsettled conditions, especially 
along the border. The south was pressing the ques- 
tion of introducing slavery into the wesetrn states 
and territories. Bishop Simpson had early formed a 
strong attachment for Henry Clay, who wrote the 
fugitive slave bill which was adopted by the Con- 
gress, but with the clause omitted which Clay had in 
it that in case of capture of a slave there should be a 
trial by a jury, which, however, Congress struck out. 
The temperance question, pewed churches and mixed 
sittings, and lay delegation were then live questions. 
A man of such early training as he had, of such 
broad intelligence, of such arduous and courageous 
temperament could not be expected to keep his pen 
out of such political and ecclesiastical questions. 
Being strongly anti-slavery, yet he was not an aboli- 
tionist in the party sense, and in this he differed with 
his uncle and much controversy was held between 
them on this subject. But his greatest efforts were 
directed against the extension of slavery into the ter- 
ritories. On the temperance question he wrote : 
"Ministers of the gospel, fear not the charge of 



LETTER WRITER AND EDITOR. 53 



meddling in politics. The demagogue may assault 
you but you have nothing to fear. Sobriety will 
prepare the way for the gospel; we have a special 
promise to plead in behalf of the church, as if written 
in view of such men and such opposition : 'The gates 
of hell shall not prevail against it' Bishop Simp- 
son while strong in his convictions, nevertheless 
was always open to clear light, and so changed his 
opinion some times. At first he was opposed to pew- 
ed churches, but afterwards favored them. At first 
he was opposed to lay delegation in the general and 
annual conferences, but when the plan omitted the 
latter body he threw himself with all his eloquence 
and courage in favor of the measure. It should be 
said here that Bishop Simpson was not by nature a 
controversialist but during the latter part of his edi- 
torial career he became involved with some news- 
papers in a sharp controversy on the slavery question 
but following Shakespeare's advice he showed him- 
self a man. I never knew of his having a debate on 
baptism or Calvinism, which was so common in those 
early times. While editor, Dr. Rice, a Presbyterian, 
was writing against the doctrine and government of 
the Methodist Church, but after a short article or two 
in reply, he turned the matter over to Dr. Foster, af- 
terwards bishop, and an able debater and his let- 



THE PEERLESS ORATOR. 



ters were afterwards published in a volume, en- 
titled "Objections to Calvinism". It is not to be 
wondered at, therefore, that Simpson's course on 
these public questions was not universally ap- 
proved by even the church itself. 

In the General Conference of 1852 when he was a 
candidate for the episcopacy he found that nearly 
all the delegates from the Ohio and North Ohio con- 
ferences were opposed to him but on the first ballot 
four bishops, the required number, were elected; 173 
votes were cast and Scott had 113, Simpson no, 
Baker 90 and Ames 89, the two-thirds rule not yet 
having been adopted. 



LITERARY WORKS. 55 



CHAPTER IV. 
Literary Works. 

The literary achievements of men have much to 
do with their earthly immortality. Had Homer and 
Vergil left nothing concerning Athens and Troy, 
they perhaps would have long since perished out of 
the thought of mankind. Without his written dra- 
mas Shakespeare would be little known personally 
today, and without the written Gospels and the let- 
ters of the apostles it is doubtful whether Christi- 
anity would have survived even to the present time. 
Had not Luther, Calvin and Wesley written much, 
their great religious movements would no doubt 
have ceased long ago. Wesley was a tireless and 
ceaseless writer, and if any criticism could be of- 
fered it would be that he wrote too much. 

Bishop Simpson wrote too little. Often did I 
urge him to put in suitable form his principal ser- 
mons, lectures and addresses, and especially his au- 
tobiography, but procrastination, as he often said, 
was his almost unconquerable fault. As I have said 
elsewhere, his utter dislike of writing might seem a 
sufficient excuse were it not that most of his literary 
work in later years was done by a stenographer, and 



56 THE PEERLESS ORATOR. 



he was an accurate and rapid dictator, but seldom 
revising his work. He often said that the public 
would not care much for his writings after he was 
gone, but he did leave an all too brief sketch of his 
life. His characteristic modesty concerning him- 
self and his efforts would naturally deter him from 
leaving writings of any kind, and besides he was 
elected to the episcopal office just at a time when he 
was ripening for a literary life. We have shown 
elsewhere that he was a very quick learner in any 
department which he undertook, and in early life he 
was a voracious reader of valuable literature, but 
when he came to be president of a college and edi- 
tor of a paper, and especially as a bishop, he often 
regretted that his systematic reading and study were 
so much broken up. 

And such were the constant and extensive travels 
of Bishop Asbury that he left no sermons or other 
writings except a small work on "Causes and Cure 
of Heart and Church Divisions", and his Journal 
was simply his diary made up mostly while on his 
journeys. In fact none of the early ■ bishops left 
any writings scarcely, except occasional letters, 
mainly between themselves, as in the case of As- 
bury and McKendree, until the time of Simpson. 
Some of them left occasional sermons, as Morris, 



LITERARY WORKS. 57 



and Baker left a small work on the "Discipline of the 
Church" and "The Last Witness". But Foster, 
Haven, Peck, Hurst, Merrill and Harris left works 
which have reflected great credit upon their literary 
ability. 

Like many others, Bishop Simpson's literary work 
was postponed too late in life, as men generally do 
their best work about the middle of the average life. 
His first book was entitled, "A Hundred Years of 
Methodism", published during the Centennial of 
American Independence, when he was about sixty- 
five years of age. It was dictated hurriedly and 
hence poorly shows the ability of the bishop to have 
written a much more thorough and comprehensive 
work. It has, however, been placed in the course 
of study as a book to be read by young men about 
to enter the conference. His next work was in con- 
nection with the "Cyclopedia of Methodism". How 
this work came to be published is as follows : I had 
published a volume on "Methodism and the Centen- 
nial of American Independence", and Mr. Stewart, 
of the publishing house of Everts and Stewart, Phil- 
adelphia, came to Pittsburg to interview me about 
taking editorial supervision of a Cyclopedia of 
Methodism which they were thinking of publishing. 
I excused myself on the ground mainly that I felt 



58 THE PEERLESS ORATOR. 



somewhat exhausted by writing my own work and 
was not at all ambitious to undertake another of 
much larger proportions so soon. He urged, how- 
ever, that they would furnish all the clerical help 
needed if I could but accept, and I finally suggested 
that on his return to Philadelphia he should call upon 
Bishop Simpson and lay the matter before him, and 
if he would co-operate we would join our efforts 
and prepare the work. But even this suggestion 
was not without some misgivings, as I knew the 
bishop must be absent much of the time on his of- 
ficial business, and the greater part of the labor must 
fall upon me. The bishop made an appointment to 
see me at Verona, Pa., where until one o'clock in 
the morning we were busy outlining the plan of 
the work. In a short time I went to Philadelphia, 
and we worked together in his private library until 
the large volume was published. And I may be 
permitted to say that it was highly commended and 
was soon found as a handy volume in most of the 
leading newspaper and magazine ofhces of the Unit- 
ed States, and further, it may be said it is of too 
much value to be lost to Methodism, but of course 
now needs thorough revision and enlargement. 

The bishop's next and last work was his Lectures 
before the divinity students of Yale College. This 



LITERARY WORKS. 59 



is a medium-sized volume, dictated also much too 
hurriedly for thoroughness. The work is in no 
sense polemical or philosophical, neither does it fol- 
low any homiletical school. And while he strenu- 
ously urged extemporaneous preaching, yet he gave 
no encouragement for negligence of form or con- 
secutiveness of thought or treatment. However, he 
cared more for substance than for form. This 
work also has been placed among the required read- 
ings in the course of study for young ministers. 

The bishop often expressed a strong desire to 
write another book, probably entitled, "The Tri- 
umph of Protestantism Throughout the World". 
He said he had so often been on platforms where 
speakers as alarmists had portrayed the great 
dangers from Roman Catholicism. He said 
there was no such danger. Modern civiliza- 
tion will not yield control to Romanism as 
nearly all nations now witness, hence Roman- 
ism must change and modify her ecclesiasti- 
cal system much in harmony with at least the 
fundamental principles of our civilization, and 
when this is done most of the danger has passed 
away forever. And more the third or fourth 
generation by a gradual process becomes largely im- 
bued with our Protestant civilization and in love 



6o THE PEERLESS ORATOR. 



with it, and hence they practically depart from Ro- 
man usages. The bishop felt so hopeful that he 
believed that Methodism alone would always be a 
counter balance to the progress of Romanism in this 
land, but should any emergency arise when any of 
the fundamentals of our civilization should be en- 
dangered, how quickly would all Protestant bodies 
run together to protect a common and vital interest. 
And knowing these and other points in the general 
outline in his mind, I have wished that I had time 
to, in some measure at least, accomplish his desire by 
publishing such a work. 

But that I may not seem to do injustice to the 
other bishops of the church, I may mention more in 
detail their literary works. Bishop D. W. Clarke 
wrote the following: "Life and Times of Bishop 
Hedding"; "Methodist Episcopal Pulpit''; "Mental 
Discipline"; "Man all Immortal"; "Deathbed 
Scenes'" ; "Volume of Sermons''' ; "Fireside Read- 
ing'*'; "Elements of Algebra"; "Select London Lec- 
tures". Bishop John Emory: "A Defense of our 
Fathers" ; "Episcopal Controversy and Defense" ; 
"Episcopal Controversy Reviewed". Bishop R. S. 
Foster : "Christian Purity''' ; "Objections to Calvin- 
ism", and his large works on theology. Bishop 
Hamline : Sermons and miscellaneous works, 



LITERARY WORKS. 61 



and Life and Letters. Bishop Harris on "The 
Powers of the General Conference." Bishop E. O. 
Haven, "Young Man Advised" ; "Pillars of Truth" ; 
"Rhetoric". Bishop Gilbert Haven, "Our Next 
Door Neighbor"; "The Pilgrims Wallett"; "Father 
Taylor"; "Occasional Sermons". Bishop Hedding, 
"Church Polity" and Letters. Besides Bishop 
Hurst's eleven volumes, some of them of large size, 
his last work was an illustrated "History of Meth- 
odism." Bishop Janes left us only a small work ad- 
dressed to Class Leaders. Bishop Kingsley wrote 
on "The Resurrection of the Dead"; "Answer to 
Unitarianism" ; and "Round the World". Bishop 
Merrill wrote on "Christian Baptism" ; "Heaven and 
Hell" and the "Administration of the Discipline". 
Bishop Morris wrote on "Church Polity" and a book 
of sermons. Bishop Newman wrote works on "From 
Dan to Beersheba"; "The Thrones and Palaces of 
Babylon and Nineveh". Bishop Peck left us "The 
Central Idea of Christianity"; "God in History"; 
"The True Woman"; "What Must I Do to Be Sav- 
ed" and "The Great Republic". Bishop Taylor 
wrote "Seven Years Street Preaching" ; "Four 
Years Campaign in India" ; "California Life Illus- 
trated" and other smaller works. Bishop Thomp- 
son left the following: "Essays"; "Letters from 



62 THE PEERLESS ORATOR. 



Europe"; "Evidences of Revealed Religion"; "Our 
Oriental Missions". Bishop Warren has written on 
"Sights and Insights"; "Travels in Europe" and 
some smaller works. Bishop Wiley left us "Relig- 
ion in the Family" and "Fallen Heroes in Foo 
Chow". Other bishops have written smaller works 
not mentioned here. It will be observed that ex- 
cepting a few works, most of the above are scarcely 
known to the reading public of today. Since the 
organization of the church in 1784, eighty-five men 
have been called to this the highest and most influ- 
ential office in the church and are not their literary 
products altogether too meager and scarce ? It can- 
not be assumed that they lacked scholarship and lit- 
erary ability, nor that there were no special occa- 
sions to call forth discussions from their pens, since 
they lived through the most excited and agitated 
periods both of our national and ecclesiastical his- 
tory. Among others two important reasons may be 
assigned for this deficiency of literary episcopal out- 
put. In those times great emphasis was placed upon 
the importance of being men of one book, being con- 
secrated directly and exclusively to the ministerial 
calling, notwithstanding Wesley had set them such 
an illustrious example to the contrary. And of 
course emphasis would not be taken off but rather 



LITERARY WORKS. 63 



increased when called to this sacred office. Another 
cause may be found in their prolonged absence from 
home and almost continuous travel. 

The earlier bishops of the Methodist Episcopal 
Church South make no better showing, if indeed as 
good. Bishop Soule left nothing, although a man 
of good intellect; Bishop Bascom left a work on 
slavery and four volumes of sermons; Bishop An- 
drew left a small work on family government and 
miscellaneous writings; Bishop Paine wrote "The 
Life and Times of Bishop McKendree" ; Bishop Mc- 
Tyeire was the author of "Manual of the Discipline/' 
"Duties of Masters" and "History of Methodism". 
After inquiry it is found that the bishops of the 
Episcopal Church have but little better literary rec- 
ord. It is true, however, that the bishops of the 
Church of England have the best record for similar 
officials for scholarship and critical and literary pro- 
ductions, and the chief reasons are they have more 
leisure and are not so often called upon at outside 
functions. 

It seems to me, therefore, that the bishops of 
the Methodist Episcopal Church should have more 
leisure and less outside work to perform. Also by 
reason of the great influence of their exalted posi- 
tion they should write more for the press, and pub- 



64 THE PEERLESS ORATOR. 

lish thorough discussions of great questions espec- 
ially such as affect the moral and social and intellec- 
tual welfare of society, and this should be done when 
they are in the fullest vigor of mind and body. 



an 



APPEARANCE AND HABITS. 65 



CHAPTER V. 

Personal Appearance and Habits. 

It can hardly be said on any score that Bishop 
Simpson was a handsome man, but what of it as an 
American humorist says that "a handsome man ain't 
much of a man anyway." In some of his greatest 
flights of oratory he did have a face like a benedic- 
tion. But homely men have made great successes. 
Pope was a hunchback, and for this reason was 
called an interrogation point. Socrates had thick 
lips, lobster-like eyes and a flat nose. Ben Johnson, 
Lord Brougham, Lord Chesterfield, Gibbon, Hum- 
bolt, Edward Irving and Darwin were very homely. 
Even in the times of Horace, he said that a great in- 
tellect lies concealed under an uncouth exterior. 
Goethe was generally pronounced a handsome man, 
and when he would enter a restaurant the people 
would lay down their knives and forks to look at 
him, and yet he himself said that which applies so 
well to Simpson that great endowments often an- 
nounce themselves in the form of singularity and 
awkwardness. A German philosopher has said that 
in the natural world we rarely see beauty allied with 
usefulness. As we shall see he was not small like 



66 



THE PEERLESS ORATOR. 



one of the great poets of Athens, who had lead fas- 
tened to his sandals to prevent him being toppled 
over or blown away. We say nothing against small 
men, for we think Paul Jones, Lord Nelson, the Lit- 
tle Corporal, Aristotle, Pope and the Italian 
Abbe Galiani, who was four feet and six inches in 
height but a man of vast and luminous learning. 

As these lines may be read by many who never 
saw Bishop Simpson, a personal description of him 
may be of interest to them at least. He was about 
six feet in height, rather slightly built except hav- 
ing heavy shoulders, and his weight was above the 
average, becoming lighter in his later years. He 
was always inclined to stoop and towards the 
life he had heavy reddish brown hair which grew 
down over his forehead, but in later years 
the upper half of his head was almost bald. 
His frontal skull was well formed and a little 
receding, but his low grown hair might cause 
one to think that his head was not well shaped 
in this respect. His head was very w T ide be- 
tween the ears, indicating great force and 
energy. His hat band measure was very large, sug- 
gesting large brain capacity and nervous vital force. 
He had long and heavy eye brows, which over- 
shadowed deep set, piercing and yet benignant blue 



APPEARANCE AND HABITS. 67 



eyes, and his nose was large and somewhat aquiline, 
indicating the orator and strength of character. His 
mouth was broad and seemed always ready for a 
smile. His broad and heavy chin, like his large 
ears, suggested charity and benevolence. His arms 
were long and when in action seemed extremely so, 
and his hands and feet were well shaped almost, 
however, approaching the feminine model. It was 
not his habit to wear a beard, but on his way to the 
Holy Land he let his beard grow, and it was white 
on his chin and brown on his cheeks and sandy on his 
upper lip, and then he was only about forty-six years 
of age. His voice was not heavy, but resonant and 
had good carrying qualities to large audiences. His 
voice was "so sweet and musical as bright 
Apollo's lute, strung with his hair." He was 
very pleasing in the social circle, and was 
quick and sprightly in conversation and often 
had a peculiar way of answering a question, 
in which he would incorporate the question 
itself in his answer. He was a good and 
rapid walker, and not many would find it easy 
to keep up with his gait. His general habit on the 
street was to look straight ahead. He was quick 
with his hands and could find a page or certain 
place in a book as soon as any man whom I have 



68 THE PEERLESS ORATOR. 



ever known. He was not fastidious in his dress, but 
plain and simple. 

"A golden mind stoops not to shows of dross 
For 'tis the mind that makes the body rich." 

One who knew him well says that he was very 
awkward when nearly grown up, even uncouth and 
stooped in the "Atlantean shoulders, fit to beare the 
weight of mightiest monarchies." Even in after 
years his appearance in the pulpit did not at first 
create a favorable impression, but no sooner had he 
commenced his address than a deep interest was 
awakened and sustained to the very last. As the 
dramatist says he was, "A Corinthian, a lad of met- 
tle, a good boy." 

It is not surprising to find that a boy with such 
an ardent temperament should be very active and in- 
deed difficult to restrain. He speaks himself of his 
fondness for noise and excitement, and would laugh 
at the lightning and thunder. In running, jumping, 
wrestling, shooting with bow and arrow, and flying 
kites, he tried to excel, and his friends encouraged 
him in these outdoor sports as favorable to over- 
come his physical weakness. At the time of his 
birth his father was in feeble health and later died 
of consumption, and this would make his mother 
and friends apprehensive of his danger. He never 



APPEARANCE AND HABITS. 69 



expected to live to see full manhood. He com- 
menced a diary in 1831 when he was twenty years 
old, and a significant entry was made June 21, 1831 : 
"This day I am twenty; the one-fifth of a century 
has elapsed since I was born. In that period I have 
been acquiring necessary information for a journey 
which I shall probably never take. Though I am 
young I feel in myself the shafts of death." Soon 
after this he said that the doctor thought that by 
strict care and active exercise he may recover. He 
went to the country and tried harvesting, which he 
says he stood much better than he expected. He 
even worked on the public highways, and as a car- 
penter, repairing the church. In the same year he 
bought a horse for the purpose of riding for health. 
The bishop told me that in those years he wore a cat- 
skin on his breast to protect his lungs and for its 
supposed electrical effect. 

It should be remembered that during these years 
he was studying medicine, and sometimes in their 
absence the regular physicians requested him to at- 
tend patients, some of whom had serious afflictions. 

When we consider the intensity of his life and 
work and how severely he tasked himself, we are 
surprised that he lived so long. Shakespeare says 
that when the mind is free the body is delicate ; and 



THE PEERLESS ORATOR. 



further he says the mind shall banquet though 
the body pine; and it is the mind that makes 
the body rich. He seemed in early life to 
have copied closely Wesley's personal rules 
for daily life. He usually rose at four o'clock 
the year round, read the Bible, mostly in the 
ancient languages, read works on science and 
medicine, assisted in the clerk's office, heard 
recitations in the academy, attended prayer meet- 
ing, preaching and Sunday-school, writing ad- 
dresses for some other persons, fasted on Fridays, 
led class in the church and afterwards was appointed 
to a six weeks' circuit with thirty-four appointments, 
including his home town. He says his health was 
still poor, but meeting a physician on his circuit, 
who had recovered his health, he advised him to ride 
from eight to ten miles and preach once a day. Hav- 
ing been strongly advised by nearly all other phy- 
sicians to desist from preaching as his life was in 
danger, he always regarded this as a Providential 
interview. When he was appointed to Pittsburg as 
junior preacher, his friends strongly advised him not 
to go as his lungs were weak and health poor, and 
the city smoky and dusty and cholera epidemic there. 
His uncle Simpson was still concerned for his health 
and wrote saying that if his health should fail he 



APPEARANCE AND HABITS. 71 



should come home till it should mend. In a later 
letter he wrote that his health and welfare gave him 
great concern of mind. Also when asked his advice 
concerning the study of French and German, he said 
that he would not for fear of his health. The bishop 
at the same time was balancing probabilities when 
he wrote his uncle that he thought Providence eith- 
er designed him for a very short life or else one 
marked with peculiar incidents of an arduous and 
responsible character, and still later his uncle wrote 
that his daily prayer was that God would give him 
health, grace, wisdom and fortitude to do His will 
in all things. Another letter from his uncle must 
have been very helpful to him, in which he cautioned 
him against trembling over a premature grave. 
When the bishop was only nineteen years of age he 
says his health was seriously affected with a severe 
pain in the head, attended with inflammation of the 
eyes, the most unpleasant symptom being a sense of 
occasional dizziness and fulness in the head, and 
some of these symptoms occasionally returned for 
a few years. But strange as it may seem during 
the two years he spent in Pittsburg and the six 
months he spent in Monongahela City, his health 
greatly improved, so that by the remarkable force 
and energy of his will he was enabled largely to 



THE PEERLESS ORATOR. 



overcome his natural physical weakness and accom- 
plish some of the most heroic work ever given to 
the church. Livy said that bravery and endurance 
make a man a Roman. Here was a greater than 
a Richard Baxter struggling against physical disabil- 
ities all his life ; a greater than a Milton, who could 
make the mental eye see what his blinded natural 
eye could not behold; a greater than a Whitefield, 
who so entranced the people that they did not ob- 
serve his squinting eyes; a greater than a Summer- 
field whose frail form seemed ethereal and spir- 
itual in his Gospel rhapsodies. 

We do not intend to intimate that a true model 
physique is not a decided advantage. It is but this 
must be compensated or counterbalanced by other 
superior talents. Perhaps it is generally true that 
the beautiful captivates us before the useful, but 
when the flowers fade we appreciate more fully the 
fruit. 

"How small a part of time they share 
That are so wondrous sweet and fair! 
Illustrious acts high raptures do infuse 
And every conqueror creates a muse." 

I doubt not that men who know their weaknesses 
and hindrances are spurred to loftier efforts by this 
knowledge. Even pain and suffering have their 



APPEARANCE AND HABITS. 73 



compensations, they yield the peaceable fruits of 
righteousness. It is said that a squinting eye is an 
advantage to a boxer, and a left hand batter is a 
prize in a. game. All hindrances coupled with cour- 
age and perseverance may be overcome. Marcus 
Morton ran for Governor of Massachusetts seven- 
teen times before he was elected. We are not al- 
ways good judges as to whether we have failed or 
succeeded. After the polished Edward Everett had 
spoken for two hours at the dedication of the battle- 
field of Gettysburg, President Lincoln arose and 
read his address consisting of two hundred and 
sixty-six words. Lincoln thought he had made a 
failure but Everett said he would rather be the au- 
thor of those twenty lines than his finished oration. 
Lincoln's words have been cast in bronze and placed 
in the Hall of Fame. 

"Stronger by weakness, wiser men become 
As they draw near to their eternal home." 



74 THE PEERLESS ORATOR. 



CHAPTER VI. 
Graduate Physician. 

The medical profession is the oldest of the pro- 
fessions. Men began to care for their bodies before 
they began to care for their souls. Among the Puri- 
tans, especially in New England, it was not uncom- 
mon for the ministers to act as physicians and the 
two professions have been intimately associated from 
early history, and many have passed from one to 
the other. A few years ago the medical profession 
was in danger of being considered grossly material- 
istic. At school a student studied almost wholly 
from a physiological and anatomical standpoint, and 
in the dissecting or surgical room the joke passed 
around that they must be careful not to cut the soul, 
while performing an operation. It is proper for the 
physician to experiment upon the patient, as in all 
other professions experiments are made, and the 
physician must do likewise, or no advance will be 
made. And suppose that some lives are lost in 
these experiments, more are saved by the knowledge 
derived therefrom. 

Physicians often complain of the actions of min- 
isters in the sick room. Mournful demeanor is no 



GRADUATE PHYSICIAN. 75 



doubt injurious to the recovery of the patient, but 
if, on the other hand, he can pacify the mind, he 
helps the physician to restore the patient. The phy- 
sician is admitted into the home under the most sac- 
red and delicate conditions, and, should he betray 
that privilege, there is no condemnation or punish- 
ment too great for him scarcely. 

How many physicians are engaged in church 
work? Too few of them are found at church ser- 
vices. In general, the people are greatly at fault, 
for "Sunday sickness" is an epidemic that prevails at 
all seasons, and seems to be worse in hot weather 
than at any other time. People will work through 
sickness all week and go to see the doctor on Sun- 
day. Many physicians do not like to be called out 
of church, but I see no impropriety in it. 

Remedies and medicines are at least as old as the 
Bible and the New Testament recognizes the pro- 
fession and practice, and nowhere is the profession 
condemned. The great advancement in the knowl- 
edge of remedies and in surgery and anesthetics is 
one of the greatest blessings that has come to mod- 
ern civilized life. What inexpressible sufferings 
men in ancient times must have endured on the bat- 
tlefield, in times of epidemics and distressing dis- 
ease? To deny the existence of disease is to give 



76 THE PEERLESS ORATOR. 



the lie to our senses and turns the Bible into foolish- 
ness and no one is a friend of the Bible or true 
Christianity who denies the real existence of evil. 

Bishops Thomson and Wiley were both graduate 
physicians before entering the ministry. 

Comparatively few persons know to what extent 
Simpson studied and practiced medicine before he 
entered the ministry. When nineteen years of age 
he felt that it was time that he should begin to shape 
his studies towards some definite profession. In 
Cadiz, Ohio, he went to an academy, the head 
teacher of which was Dr, James McBean, and he, 
like the bishop, w T as of Scotch Irish descent. He had 
attended Jefferson College, Canonsburg, Pa. He 
was a man of fine education and of more than or- 
dinary talents. He was born in Cadiz, and be- 
came eminent as a physician in that city, and in Free- 
port, O., where he subsequently removed. He es- 
pecially excelled as a Latin and Greek scholar. 

The bishop entered as a medical student under 
Dr. McBean and spent three years in such studies as 
were required by the law of the State, and he passed 
his examination before the medical board appointed 
by the State. Dr. McBean says that in all his stud- 
ies and examinations he acquitted himself with 
credit. That his studies were not superficial or 



GRADUATE PHYSICIAN. 77 



merely elementary may be seen from his examina- 
tions in the ancient languages and chemistry. The 
following is a partial list of works studied and upon 
which he successfully passed his examinations: 
Cooper's Surgery; Cooper's Surgical Dictionary; 
Hufeland on Scrofula ; Materia Medica, 2 volumes ; 
Gibson's Surgery, 2 volumes; Goode's Practice of 
Medicine, besides works on anatomy, physiology and 
hygiene. These works were regarded then as stan- 
dard and were quite comprehensive. He opened 
an office in his home and was rapidly gaining a prac- 
tice, and other physicians when about to be absent 
employed him to attend their patients, some of 
whom were serious cases, requiring the most skill- 
ful treatment. 

Here again we find a parallel between the bishop 
and John Wesley. Before going to America Wes- 
ley studied medicine for a few months, thinking that 
this knowledge would be of service to him as a mis- 
sionary. A few years after his return from Geor- 
gia, when Wesley was 43 years of age, he opened 
a dispensary at the Foundry in London and employ- 
ed an apothecary or druggist and an experienced 
surgeon and in five months he had treated more than 
"five hundred cases and seventy-one of these were 
cured of troubles long considered incurable." And 



78 THE PEERLESS ORATOR. 



such was his success in London that in two months 
he opened another dispensary at Bristol and in a 
short time there were treated there more than two 
hundred patients. Wesley says that for twenty- 
seven years he had made anatomy and medicine his 
diversion in leisure hours. (When did he have 
them?) Of course the regular physicians pro- 
nounced him a quack, but he justified himself by 
saying the people were poor and his treatment cost 
them nothing, although in five months he had paid 
out over two hundred dollars for medicine alone. 
The next year he published his medical work, en- 
titled "Primitive Physic, or an Easy and Natural 
Method of Curing Most Diseases." This book con- 
sisted of 119 12-mo. pages. This work grew out 
his practice in the free dispensary opened the year 
before and at the time of Wesley's death it had 
reached its twenty-third edition. Of course the 
work had been criticized and even laughed at, but 
some good physicians defended it, considering the 
use for which it was intended. 

It is not unnatural that the medical and minister- 
ial professions should not only run parallel, but oc- 
casionally run into each other. The proper care of 
the body is closely allied to the proper care of the 
soul, and often does the minister and the physician 



GRADUATE PHYSICIAN. 79 



meet in the same home. That the one should there- 
fore leave his own and go into the other profession 
is but a short step and easily taken. The number 
of physicians who have left their profession and en- 
tered the ministry is large and larger, we suppose, 
than the number of ministers who have gone into the 
practice of medicine. It is no doubt true that John 
Wesley's knowledge of medicine was not only the 
foundation of his frequent advice to his preachers 
as to their habits of life, but was helpful to himself 
in living to such an old age. Simpson, like Wesley, 
was frail in his early years, having weak lungs, and 
no doubt his knowledge of medicine had much to do 
with his nearly reaching his seventy-third year, fall- 
ing short of Wesley's limit by only fourteen years. 

It is not known that John Wesley personally used 
much medicine, and in all his advice to his preachers 
he seldom refers to or recommends any medicine 
proper. Bishop Simpson, although educated under 
the severe and heroic system of practice, yet used 
but little medicine. Of course when under treat- 
ment by physicians he followed their advice. When 
he was dangerously sick in the far east, the phy- 
sicians used, as he said, anodynes, twenty leaches, 
mustard plasters, blisters and poultices, and yet the 
bishop said he did not know what the trouble was. 



8o THE PEERLESS ORATOR. 



He loved good plain food, and at banquets he 
greatly preferred the brilliant repartee of which 
he would supply his full part, rather than the 
rich viands before him. He fully believed in 
the vitalizing effect of oxygen and in later years 
often carried it with him, and after an exhaust- 
ing effort he would use it freely, especially on 
retiring at night. He kept every muscle alive 
and active, and on rising in the morning he 
would frequently swing his long arms back, 
and bring his open palms together in front with a 
loud report, making the blood tingle to the tips of 
his fingers. His indomitable will did not yield 
easily to disease, and yet he had not the least 
faith in modern Christian Science and so-called 
mental healing. There were those men in his 
early life who 

"Went about to apply a moral medicine to a morti- 
fying mischief." 

He believed that 

"By medicine life may be prolonged, yet death 
Will seize the doctor, too." 

In fact Simpson had no time for what is now 

known as fads, religious, political or social. He 

spent but little time in private conversation or in 

public discourse in discussing such, as he believed 

that most of them would die of themselves if left 



GRADUATE PHYSICIAN. 81 



alone. He had great faith in the common sense of 
the common people. He was not obstinately con- 
servative nor radically progressive. Such were his 
studious habits, his quick and accurate insight into 
human motives and physical and mental conditions 
that he would have made a successful physician. The 
same elements with the addition of his masterful 
power to awaken the emotions and influence the 
judgment would have made him a most successful 
barrister. Wesley also would have made a success- 
ful physician. His medical work was not laughed 
at in his day and his prescriptions especially, for his 
preachers indicated a correct knowledge of the phys- 
ical man and his wants. Wesley would have made 
a great statesman, always loyal to England, yet he 
had a clearer view of the wants of his country and 
the colonies than many of the leading statesmen of 
his time, yet Simpson, like Wesley, put aside all op- 
portunities for worldly preferment, cut himself loose 
from all entanglements and it was a joy to him to 
preach from the Scripture, "God forbid that I 
should glory save in the Cross of Christ." 



82 THE PEERLESS ORATOR. 



CHAPTER VII. 

Cou^gk Associates. 

Bishop Simpson, a man true to his friends and 
associates, I will therefore make a brief record of 
some of them. 

In May, 1792, Bishop Asbury spent two weeks in 
Uniontown and writes in his journal, "We have 
founded a union school. Brother C. Conway is 
manager, who also has charge of the district. This 
establishment is designed for instruction in gram- 
mar, languages and the sciences." In 1826 it be- 
came Madison College, where Simpson spent only 
about two months. This school became an acad- 
emy and before becoming a college had been in ex- 
istence thirty-four years and many have regretted 
that it was suspended in 1832, but the buildings were 
old and the library and the apparatus not the equal 
of those in Allegheny College, and it was thought 
unwise to attempt to continue both institutions. But 
this old instiution gave a powerful impulse, especi- 
ally to Methodist education in Western Pennsyl- 
vania. 



COLLEGE ASSOCIATES. 83 



H. B. Bascom was born in Hancock, New York, 
May 27, 1796. His parents were poor. His school 
days ended when twelve years of age. On remov- 
ing westward he was admitted into the Ohio Confer- 
ence in 18 1 3. He was elected chaplain of Congress 
1823 by the influence of Henry Clay. At the or- 
ganization of the Pittsburg Conference he was ap- 
pointed to Uniontown. In 1827 he was elected 
President of Madison College, Uniontown, Pa., 
which position he filled for two years, and was then 
appointed agent of the American Colonization So- 
ciety. He was a delegate to- every general confer- 
ence from 1828 to 1844. I n ^32 he was elected 
professor of moral science in Augusta College, Ky., 
and in 1842 became President of Transylvania Col- 
lege, Lexington, Ky. At the division of the church 
in 1844 he prepared and read the "Protest" of the 
southern members to the "plan", and ever after ad- 
hered to the church south. He also prepared the 
plan for the organization of the M. E. Church South 
in 1845. I n ^46 he was editor of the Southern 
Quarterly Review, and in 1850 was elected bishop 
and died the same year in Louisville, Ky., aged 54. 
He presided at only one conference. Such in brief 
was Bishop Simpson's first college president and as- 
sociate in college life. 



84 THE PEERLESS ORATOR. 



Bishop Bascom published an elaborate volume 
in defense of the Southern church. He was a man 
of remarkably fine personal appearance, and had a 
voice of unusual compass and power. It is said that 
in his earlier years he was trained for the stage. 
Bishop Simpson said of him that at that time he was 
perhaps the most popular pulpit orator in the United 
States. His sermons were written with great care 
and read from manuscript, and although sometimes 
an hour and a half long, the people did not grow 
weary. 

Matthew Simpson, the bishop's uncle, was born 
in County Tyrone, Ireland, June, 1776, and emi- 
grated with the Simpson family to America in 1793, 
sailing from Londonderry and landing in Baltimore, 
and for a while settled in Huntingdon County, 
Pennsylvania, but finally removed and settled the 
most of them in Harrison County, Ohio. He re- 
mained with the bishop's family until a few years be- 
fore his death. They finally located in Cadiz, Ohio. 
By close reading he became a fine scholar, especially 
in mathematics and the ancient and modern lan- 
guages. For a number of years he was a judge of 
the county court, and then for ten years a member 
of the Ohio State Senate. He had invented and 
erected machinery for making weavers' reeds. He 



COLLEGE ASSOCIATES. 85 



also made a machine for weaving bristles into the re- 
quired form of the "stock" or high necktie, three or 
four inches wide, so popular in those times. These 
two inventions furnished employment for members 
of the family, at which the bishop himself worked 
at odd times. The uncle had a private school in the 
home where he taught grammar, rhetoric, mathe- 
matics and the languages. He was apt in illustra- 
tion, a good disciplinarian, kind and gentle. The 
bishop soon became his assistant teacher in the 
school, often taking entire charge of it. In fact this 
uncle was his preceptor for several years, overseeing 
his studies, especially in mathematics and the ancient 
and modern languages, German, French, Spanish 
and Italian. 

He never lost interest in his nephew, as his let- 
ters for many years show. In a letter to him while 
he was pastor in Pittsburg, he wrote that instead of 
housing himself up in retirement, he should stir 
about as heretofore in the discharge of duty, and 
to remember that he was m the critical time of life, 
and in the critical time of his ministry. The bishop 
was contemplating doing some college work and 
then delivering a Hebrew oration at Allegheny Col- 
lege, at the request of Dr. Ruter, the president, and 
having passed the senior examination they would 



86 THE PEERLESS ORATOR. 



confer upon him the degree of A. M. Concerning 
this oration the uncle wrote that the subject ought 
to be of the most solemn kind. It should be first 
composed in English and then translated into He- 
brew. The uncle also gave him important advice 
about selecting texts, and how to treat them. He 
cautioned him in attempting to find scriptural proof 
to establish every principle of geology and natural 
philosophy. He says the Bible was intended to in- 
culcate every moral and religious principle. He 
said that he hoped he did not say Paul's letter, in- 
stead of Paul's epistle, and this was the word the 
bishop always used in reading his lesson or announc- 
ing his text, — showing how his uncle's advice had 
remained with him all the years of his ministry. He 
not only gave him outlines of sermons, but wrote 
him expositions of difficult subjects in theology. 

The uncle had already learned of some jealousy 
at the bishop's growing popularity, so he writes as 
follows that when he was young I taught you some- 
things which you would do well to remember. One 
was that whosoever would excel in learning or piety 
or ministerial duties will become an object of envy. 
Others will industriously find and impute to you sin- 
ister motives for all you do. You are to expect all 
this from preachers. Pity that 'tis true ! That the 



COLLEGE ASSOCIATES. 87 



bishop highly appreciated these letters is certain. He 
said that he thanked him very much for his several 
interesting letters. 

His uncle seems to have had some fears that his 
marriage might cause his love for the church to 
wane, but on the contrary, he said that he could not 
forget while his heart beats or his mind acts, 
one who gave him what little intellectual culture he 
possessed, and to whose precepts and example he 
was indebted for those traits of character which had 
placed him where he was. His letters now became 
less frequent, but no diminution of affection was 
seen on either side, as mother and uncle afterwards 
spend most of their latest years with him and his 
mother dying in his home. 

The uncle wrote him about his great inaugural ad- 
dress at Asbury University, that he was exceedingly 
joyful at the success of his performance. But he 
seems uneasy about the popularity of his nephew 
and wrote for him to remember that he may 
now float to the clouds and then sink to the bottom 
of the ocean, and mere trifles may be the occasion of 
the rise and fall. He finally died in Allegheny City, 
and was buried in Philadelphia in the mausoleum. 

Bishop Simpson was called to the chair of nat- 
ural science in Allegheny College, Meadville, Pa., 



88 THE PEERLESS ORATOR. 



while he was pastor of the church at Williamsport, 
now Monongahela City, Pa., in 1837, and in the 
same year was elected vice-president. Dr. Mar- 
tin Ruter was President of Allegheny College. He 
was born in Charlton, Mass., April 3, 1785. In 
1 801, he was admitted into the New York confer- 
ence and was stationed in Montreal, then presiding 
elder of the New Hampshire district, and filled a 
number of important appointments in New Eng- 
land, then principal of New Market Academy, elect- 
ed book agent at Cincinnati in 1820, and reelected 
in 1824, and President of Augusta College, Ken- 
tucky, in 1828, and remained four years, and then 
was transferred to the Pittsburg conference and 
stationed in Pittsburg with Thomas Drummond, un- 
der the Elder Charles Elliott, in 1832 and 1833. ^ n 
1833 he was elected President of Allegheny College, 
which he accepted the year Simpson came to Pitts- 
burg with Thomas M. Hudson and William Hunter. 
Ruter remained in charge of the college three years, 
and then was appointed Superintendent of Missions 
in Texas, and died in Washington, Texas, May 16, 
1838, fifty-one years of age. 

He published a Hebrew grammar, a history of 
martyrs and an ecclesiastical history. Simpson 
says of him that he was a man of great industry and 




Prof. Hamnette, D. D., 
Allegheny College. 



COLLEGE ASSOCIATES. 89 



fair rather than brilliant talent. It was in 1834 that 
Dr. Ruter invited Simpson to become a member of 
the faculty of Allegheny College. He wrote him 
that if he would come as professor of chemistry and 
so forth, he would receive at least a partial salary, 
and that he could make up the rest by his medical 
practice, as there were at that time no physicians in 
Meadville. In two years after this he was elected 
to this position. 

Jonathan Hamnett was born in Pittsburg Jan. 10, 
1 8 16, and united with the church in 1834, and was 
admitted into the Pittsburg conference in 1837, 
and was appointed to Chartiers with James Mills in 
charge. He was discontinued in 1838, and read- 
mitted in 1839, and located in 1843. Bishop Simp- 
son was stationed in Pittsburg when Hamnett was 
converted. Their friendship was very close. In 1839 
he was appointed to Cadiz, the bishop's former 
home, with Pardon Cook in charge. It was through 
the influence of the bishop and his uncle that he 
soon entered Allegheny College where he gradu- 
ated with honor. In 1869 he received the degree 
of Doctor of Divinity from Missouri University. 
For many years he was vice-president of Alle- 
gheny College, and for a time its acting president. 



9 o THE PEERLESS ORATOR. 



Professor Hamnett says that he was a boy in 
Pittsburg when Simpson was in charge of Liberty 
Street, and he was a member of that church. He 
encouraged him and two others to seek an educa- 
tion. Before the party of three started for Mead- 
ville on foot, he had them call at his study and 
prayed with them. He went to college with only ten 
dollars in the world. Simpson did not forget the 
young men, but in 1837, when pastor at Mononga- 
hela City, he wrote Hamnett a long letter full of 
wise counsel. He said he should take care of his 
health at all hazards, and let his admonition have the 
more weight, as he had felt some of the evils of a 
contrary course. Among his other studies he ad- 
vises him to study the Septuagint, the oldest Greek 
translation of the Old Testament. 

Charles Elliott was born at Glenconway, County 
Donegal, Ireland, May 16, 1792, and was convert- 
ed in 181 1, when nineteen years of age, the year in 
which Bishop Simpson was born. He was licensed 
to preach when twenty-one years of age, 18 13, and 
in 1814 he with his widowed mother and family re- 
moved to America and located in Western Pennsyl- 
vania, and was received on trial in the Ohio Confer- 
ence in 18 18, and appointed to Zanesville circuit. In 
1822 he was appointed missionary to the Wyandotte 



Dr. Charles Elliott. 



COLLEGE ASSOCIATES. 91 



Indians. In 1825 and 1826 he was presiding elder 
of the Ohio district, which then included such cities 
as Canton, Youngstown, Beaver and New Castle. 
From 1827 to 183 1 he was professor of languages in 
Madison College and part of the time pastor at 
Uniontown. In 1832 and 1833 he was appointed 
presiding elder of Pittsburg district. From 1833 
to 1836 he was editor of the Pittsburg Conference 
Journal, and from 1836 to 1848 he was editor of the 
Western Christian Advocate, when Bishop Simp- 
son, President of Asbury University, was elected to 
the editorship, Dr. Elliott returned to the pas- 
torate until Simpson was elected bishop in 1852, 
when Dr. Eliott was re-elected to the editorial chair 
of the Western Christian Advocate, which position 
he held for four years, when in 1857 he was elected 
professor, and in 1858 President of Iowa Wesleyan 
University. In i860 he was elected editor of the 
Central Christian Advocate, which he conducted for 
four years. He was nine times a delegate to the 
general conference. His greatest work was "De- 
lineations of Roman Catholicism", a work made up 
from original sources, mostly from the Latin auth- 
ors and at that time, if indeed at any time, had no 
equal. The reformation of Romanism was the great 
burden on his heart, the need of which no doubt he 



THE PEERLESS ORATOR. 



had witnessed in his native land, and to this end he 
had offered himself as a missionary to Rome. He 
died in Mount Pleasant, Iowa, Jan. 6, 18691, aged 77. 
Besides his versatile and profound literary attain- 
ments, he was a great drillmaster in the Latin and 
Greek languages and pure mathematics. If as 
Carlyle says that every great man whom he met 
formed an epoch in his life, may it not be that this 
great man, who made himself great without the help 
of a college, so much like the bishop himself, at least 
helped to fashion his own illustrious life? 

Simon Elliott, the brother of Charles, was born in 
Ireland, October 25, 1809, seventeen years the 
younger. He was educated at Madison College, un- 
der his brother, Charles, and Simpson boarded in 
his brother's family. He was admitted to the Pitts- 
burg conference in 1833, and was stationed on the 
Brownsville circuit with Thomas Jamison and I. N. 
McAbee. His brother Charles was at this time pre- 
siding elder of this district, the Pittsburg. Next 
year he was on the Laurel Hill Mission with Samuel 
Wakefield. In 1835 ne was appointed to Brad- 
dock's Fields. In 1836 he was appointed to Kit- 
tanning with D. R. Hawkins, next year to Blairs- 
ville, next year, 1838, to South Common, Allegheny. 
In 1839 ne was appointed presiding elder of Beaver 



COLLEGE ASSOCIATES. 93 



district, where he continued until 1843, when he was 
appointed to Hanover in his district with G. A. Low- 
man. In 1844 he was sent again to Hanover with 
W. N. Gilmore, and in 1845 he was made presiding 
elder of Clarksburg district which he served two 
years, and in 1847 was appointed to Morgantown 
district, and in 1848 was sent to Steuben vi lie district, 
which he served two years. While on this district 
he died, Sept. 26, 1849, on ^y forty years of age. He 
was a man of culture, sound judgment and deep 
piety. Just how much of his life fell in with that 
of Bishop Simpson is not known, but he was a man 
of varied and useful services to the church and in 
education and one of the useful products of Madi- 
son College. 

William Hunter was another of the associates of 
Bishop Simpson. He was also born in Ireland, May 
26, 181 1, there being only about a month's differ- 
ence in their ages. When he was six years of age, 
18 1 7, his family came to America and located near 
York, Pa. He entered Madison College in 1830, 
having been led to do so by Dr. Elliott, as was 
Bishop Simpson, and like him also he had to de- 
pend largely on his own efforts. 

In 1833, with Simpson, Wesley Smith, Simon 
Elliott, C. D. Battelle, John Coil and a large class, 



THE PEERLESS ORATOR. 



he was admitted into the Pittsburg conference and 
appointed to Beaver and New Brighton with Joshua 
Monroe in charge. In 1834 he was appointed third 
preacher to Pittsburg, which included Smithfield 
Street, Liberty Street and some smaller work, with 
Thomas M. Hudson and Matthew Simpson, and 
Charles Elliott, editor of the Pittsburg Conference 
Journal. We can imagine how pleasant must have 
been the association of these three Madison College 
boys. The next year Simpson had Liberty Street 
alone; Elliott had still the paper, but Hunter was 
sent to Williamsport, now Monongahela City. In 
1836 Simpson was sent to Williamsport, where he 
first went to housekeeping, and Hunter was made 
editor of the Conference Journal, and Elliott had 
become editor of the Western Christian Advocate. 
He spent four years as editor of the Journal. From 
1840 to 1844 ne was presiding elder of the Clarks- 
burg and the Beaver districts. The general confer- 
ence of 1844 elected him editor of the Pittsburgh 
Christian Advocate, its name having been 
changed, and it was placed under the super- 
vision of the general conference. This posi- 
tion he held until 1852, when he served 
charges in the West Virginia conference for 
three years. He was then elected professor 
of Hebrew in Allegheny College, where he 



Dr. William Hunter. 



COLLEGE ASSOCIATES. 95 



remained for fifteen years. He then returned to 
the Pittsburgh conference, when in 1872 he was 
again elected editor of the Pittsburg Christian Ad- 
vocate. In 1876 when the Pittsburg conference was 
divided, he fell into the East Ohio conference, in 
1877, while presiding elder of the Cleveland dis- 
trict, he died suddenly, — Oct. 18, 1877. He was a 
delegate to the general conferences of 1844, 1852, 
i860 and 1870. He was the author of a number of 
hymns published in a little book, entitled "Select 
Melodies", which was one of the most popular works 
of its kind. He was an active member of the com- 
mittee on the revision of the Hymn Book. In the 
Whedon Series of Commentaries, he being a good 
Hebrew scholar, the Book of Proverbs was assigned 
him. How these college boys followed each other, 
first in Madison College, then as pastors in Pitts- 
burg, and then as professors in Allegheny College, 
and perhaps we had no one better fitted to have filled 
the episcopal office along with Simpson than Dr. 
William Hunter. 

Homer J. Clark was another of the professors and 
a financial agent of Madison College. He was born 
in Vermont, Dec. 23, 1803. He removed to Ohio 
and was received into the Ohio conference on trial 
in 1824, and that year entered Athens University, 



96 THE PEERLESS ORATOR. 



O., where he remained five years, and graduated 
with honor. In 1829 he was transferred to the 
Pittsburg conference, and in 1830 he was with 
Thornton Fleming at Uniontown, and in 1831 he 
was elected professor in Madison College, and in 
1832 he was stationed in Steubenville, O., and in 
Meadville, and in the same year was elected vice- 
president of Allegheny College, under Dr. Martin 
Ruter as president. Here he remained until 1844, 
when he acted for two years as agent in selling per- 
petual scholarships for the college. He was then 
elected president of the college, where he remained 
for two years and then resigned. In 1850 he was 
stationed at South Common, Allegheny, and in 185 1 
at Smithfield Street. In 1852 he was elected editor 
of the Pittsburg Christian Advocate by the general 
conference, which position he filled with great abil- 
ity. In 1856 he was presiding elder of the Pitts- 
burg District. After four years here he was pre- 
siding elder of Steubenville district, and after four 
years he took a superannuated relation and removed 
to Ohio, and died at Homersville, Medina County, 
Sept. 24, 1875. Dr. Clark was a man of sweet and 
gentle spirit, a graceful writer, a thoughtful and 
popular preacher, a man of varied talents, who was 
an honor to the Pittsburg conference. 



COLLEGE ASSOCIATES. 



John F. Fielding- was professor of mathematics in 
Madison College, when Simpson entered. He was 
admitted to the Pittsburg Conference in 1831, and 
the same year was elected president of the college. 
In 1832 he was transferred to the Ohio Conference 
and to the Missouri Conference in 1836. Simpson 
reviewed geometry under Fielding, of whom he 
speaks as "one of the clearest and ablest teachers I 
ever knew". 

F. A. Dighton was admitted to the Pittsburg Con- 
ference with Simpson in 1833, and was stationed at 
Westfield in the Erie District. In 1834 he was ap- 
pointed to St. Clairsville, Simpson's first charge. In 
1835 he was appointed to "Cleveland Station". He 
fell into the Erie Conference in 1836, and died in 
1838. In 1834 Simpson had Liberty Street alone, 
and this year there was a great revival, and during 
this time he called in Rev. F. A. Dighton to assist 
him, and a large number of young people united 
with the church. The bishop said of him as his con- 
ference and college classmate in the study of He- 
brew, that he was the best specimen of a natural 
orator he ever saw. He was clear in his statements 
and exceedingly fluent in speech, holding closely the 
attention of his audience. 



98 THE PEERLESS ORATOR. 



All of these men : 

Great in faith and strong 
Against the grief of circumstance 

have gone, save one, Prof. Hamnette, and he is 
trustfully awaiting the summons. 

Now hear these tales, ye weary and worn, 

Who for others do give up your all: 
Our Savior has told us the seed that would grow 

Into earth's dark bosom must fall 
And pass from the sight, and die away, 

And then will the fruit appear; 
The grain that seems lost in the earth below, 

Will return in the manifold ear. 
By death comes life, by life comes gain, 
The joy for the tear, the peace for the pain. 



POLITICAL FRIENDS. 99 



CHAPTER VIII. 

Pouticai, Friends. 

No correct estimate of a man's life and work that 
omits his early environment can be made. The 
Church, the Academy and the Court House were 
three influential factors in the early life of Simpson 
and these brought him in touch with the greatest 
ecclesiastics, the most scholarly educators and the 
leading statesmen of his time and among these he 
lived, labored and died. With such a naturally clear 
and broad, moral, intellectual and national view 
these great men must have stimulated him to attain 
the highest possibilities in his nature, and he never 
fell behind the greatest men of the Nation, whether 
in War or in Peace, but walked beside them giving 
as well as receiving great inspiration. Perhaps no 
ecclesiastic was more often called to open great con- 
ventions with prayer or address them than was 
Bishop Simpson. When the stress of official duties 
was so heavy more than once did President Lincoln 
call upon Bishop Simpson to take his place upon the 
platform and address a great assembly. But as we 
have somewhat freely elsewhere spoken of the in- 
timacy between Lincoln and Simpson I will mention 



ioo THE PEERLESS ORATOR. 



here only a few other famous National characters 
with whom he was associated. Charles Lamb said, 
that he was longing to be with men more excellent 
than himself and perhaps for that reason it is that 
Heine says that a great genius takes shape by con- 
tact with another great genius. 

I have been not a little surprised that some have 
endeavored to prove that Lincoln was not an ortho- 
dox believer in the Bible. The following extract 
from an address in his own town, Springfield, 111., 
during his campaign should settle that matter: 
"Here are twenty-three ministers, of different de- 
nominations, and all of them are against me but 
three, and here are a great many prominent church 
members, a very large majority are against me. 
These men well know that I am for freedom in the 
territories, freedom everywhere, as free as the Con- 
stitution and laws will permit, and that my oppo- 
nents are for slavery. They know this, and yet with 
this Book in their hands, in the light of which hu- 
man bondage can not live a moment, they 
are going to vote against me ; I do not un- 
derstand it at all. I know that there is a 
God, and that He hates injustice and slavery. 
I see the storm coming, and I know that His 
hand is in it. If He has a place and work 



POLITICAL FRIENDS. 101 



for me, and I think He has, I believe I am ready. I 
am nothing, but truth is everything. I know that I 
am right, because I know that liberty is right, for 
Christ teaches it, and Christ is God. Douglas don't 
care whether slavery is voted up or down, but God 
cares, and humanity cares, and I care; and with 
God's help I shall not fail. I may not see the end; 
but it will come, and I shall be vindicated ; and these 
men will find that they have not read their Bible 
right." 

So we see that Lincoln and Simpson both had the 
opportunity spoken of by Carlyle : He who has not 
known poverty, sorrow, contradiction, and the rest, 
and learned from them the priceless lessons they 
have to teach, has missed a good opportunity of 
schooling. Or as Heine has said, poverty sits by the 
cradle of all great men and rocks them up to man- 
hood. 

Henry Clay's parents were poor, his father being 
a Baptist minister near Richmond, Va., and died 
when Henry was only five years old. He was ad- 
mitted to the bar before he was of age. His mother 
and the children having removed to Kentucky, he 
followed them and opened a law office in Lexington. 

Clay was strongly anti-slavery and twice made a 
public effort to gradually abolish this system of serv- 
itude. He was a number of times a member of 



THE PEERLESS ORATOR. 



Congress and Speaker of the House. He believed 
in the protection of home industries and was the 
principal one in enacting the Missouri Compromise, 
forever establishing freedom north of that famous 
latitude. 

He was one of the commissioners to the treaty of 
Ghent at the close of the War of 1812. He was three 
times a candidate for president and once within a 
few votes of being elected, and was Secretary of 
State under President John Quincy Adams. 

Clay died the same year, 1852, in which bishop 
Simpson was elected bishop. Not only the points of 
similarity in their lives but also in the harmony of 
their political views made Clay and Simpson close 
friends. 

Said Henry Clay : "So long as God allows the 
vital current to flow through my veins, I will never, 
never, never by word or thought, by mind or will, 
aid in admitting one rood of free territory to the 
everlasting curse of human bondage." And as for 
the Union, he said : "If any one state or portion of 
the people of any state choose to place themselves in 
military array against the government of the Union, 
I am for trying the strength of the government. I 
am for ascertaining whether we have a government 
or not, practical, efficient, capable of maintaining its 



Hon. Henry Clay. 



POLITICAL FRIENDS. 103 



authority and of upholding its interests which belong 
to a government, nor am I alarmed or dissuaded 
from any such course by intimations of the spilling 
of blood." 

It is no wonder therefore that Bishop Simpson, 
a man of such decided patriotic sentiment, should 
find in Clay a strong patriotic friend. 

Salmon P. Chase was born in New Hampshire, 
January 13th, 1808. His mother was of Scotch 
descent like the mother of Bishop Simpson. He was 
devoted to hard work and close study in early life. 
At Washington, D. C, he studied law under the 
famous William Wirt. He went to Cincinnati, 
Ohio, to practice law in 1830, and here he took up 
the anti-slavery cause with great vigor and specially 
opposed the fugitive slave law. He believed slavery 
was sectional, but freedom was universal or should 
be. He was virtually the founder of the Liberty 
and Free Soil Parties, which led to the formation of 
the Republican Party in Pittsburg in LaFayette 
Hall in August 1852 and its victory in i860. He 
was in Congress during those great debates about 
the extension of slavery. As Chief Justice he presid- 
ed at the trial of President Andrew Johnson. He 
died in New York City, May 7th, 1873, in his sixty- 
sixth year. 



io4 THE PEERLESS ORATOR. 



Perhaps he was most famous for originating what 
has been named as the Green Back Currency while 
he was Secretary of the Treasury. He most hearti- 
ly endorsed Bishop Simpson's position on the slavery 
question and they were in frequent correspondence 
and intimate fellowship. And with these as some 
of the picked men of those perilous times Bishop 
Simpson was on intimate terms and with them suf- 
fered much because of their opinions. But never- 
theless : 

Poverty is but as the pain piercing the ears of a 
maiden, and you hang Jewels in the wound. 

Hon. John A. Bingham, the prosecutor of Lin- 
coln's murderers and the chief counsel in the im- 
peachment trial of President Andrew Johnson, also 
once governor of Ohio, and many times elected a 
member of Congress, was from Cadiz, Ohio, and a 
cordial friend of Bishop Simpson. 

Mr. Abbott in his history of the Civil War says of 
Secretary Stanton : "There is no man in the nation 
to whom the country owes a higher debt of gratitude 
than to the Hon. Edwin M. Stanton, the Secretary 
of War, during nearly the whole of this desperate 
struggle. His indomitable integrity and invincible 
moral courage have never been surpassed. To him 
far more than to any one else we are indebted for 




Salmon P. Chase. 



POLITICAL FRIENDS. 105 



the organization of colored men into regiments of 
soldiers." He says his name must stand preeminent 
on the American roll of honor. He was born in 
Steubenville, Ohio, December 19th, 1814. It is not 
generally known that in 1847 ne became a law part- 
ner in Pittsburg with Hon. Charles Shaler, and soon 
he made a national reputation as a lawyer. During 
the latter part of the administration of James 
Buchanan he was appointed Attorney General. 
Every department of the Government was then sup- 
posed to contain traitors and spies, all planning for 
secession. At the close of the administration he re- 
tired to his law practice, but in 1862 Lincoln ap- 
pointed him Secretary of War. When Andrew 
Johnson came into power he made more than one 
effort to remove Stanton, but the Congress sustained 
Stanton. But after the failure to impeach President 
Johnson, Stanton resigned and with shattered health 
caused by such an intense life, he died December 
24th, 1869. Besides because of political agreement 
as Stanton had been reared in the Methodist faith, it 
is no wonder there was an intimate fellowship be- 
tween him and Simpson and that often he was invit- 
ed to his private office as Secretary of War for con- 
sultation. 



io6 THE PEERLESS ORATOR. 



The following event is of special interest to Pitts- 
burg. At the opening of the Civil War, Secretary 
of War, Floyd, issued an order to ship all the can- 
non from the Pittsburg Arsenal by river to the 
south. This order created intense excitement and 
was resisted, the people declaring they would sink 
the boat in the Ohio River if it started with the can- 
non. Stanton then Attorney General reversed the 
order in time to escape the disaster. Henry Ward 
Beecher said of Secretary Stanton that "he was one 
of the noblest men that the Civil War brought 
forth." 

Rev. William Henry Milburn early fell in with the 
life of Bishop Simpson. He was born in Phila- 
delphia, September 26th, 1823. He became a Meth- 
odist preacher chiefly in the Southern States, at 
Montgomery and Mobile, and although in early life 
he partially lost his sight, yet he studied in Illinois 
College and became famous as the "Blind Preacher'\ 
He wrote some works of considerable interest and he 
was for many years chaplain in the Congress. In 
1859 he lectured in the principal cities in England 
and on his return was ordained in the Episcopal 
Church, but in 1872 returned to Methodism. In 
1857 Bishop Simpson with his son Charles, and Dr. 
McClintock met Milburn in Liverpool, England, who 



POLITICAL FRIENDS. 107 



became one of the party, and they traveled together, 
and the people were delighted to hear them. 

Simpson and McClintock were delegates also to 
the Irish Conference, which met in the City of Cork, 
Ireland, in 1857. Here they visited the grave of 
Richard Boardman. He was a native of Ireland 
and had been six years a local preacher, and when 31 
years of age Boardman and Pilmoor were sent to 
America. The Revolutionary War coming on, 
he returned to Ireland in 1774, having spent 
five successful years in America. He died in 
Cork, October 4th, 1782, and was buried in the 
lot owned by George Howe, a family of historic 
fame both in naval and military affairs. The 
slab, which lies on the brick tomb in the grave- 
yard in the rear of Fin Barre Cathedral, bears 
the following inscription, which I copied in July, 
1905 : 

"Beneath this stone the dust of Boardman lies; 
His pious soul has soared above the skies; 
With eloquence divine he preached the Word 
To multitudes and turned them to the Lord. 

His bright example strengthened what he taught 
And devils trembled when for Christ he fought; 
With truth and Christian zeal he nations fired 
And all who knew him mourned when he expired." 



io8 THE PEERLESS ORATOR. 



This visit of Bishop Simpson and Dr. McClintock 
to Ireland was very impressive, their parents having 
lived in the same place, in County Tyrone. From 
Cork they visited the Lakes of Killarney, preached 
in Limerick and Dublin and Belfast and visited the 
Giant's Causeway and then crossed to Scotland. 
Omitting the last two items this was the usual route 
of Wesley through Ireland. The bishop greatly ad- 
mired Belfast. 



Hon. Edwin M. Stanton. 



RELIGIOUS LIFE— A PARALLEL. 109 



CHAPTER IX. 
Religious Life — A Paraixel, 

Bishop Simpson was of Scotch Presbyterian an- 
cestry, and on the removal from England of his 
grandmother, then a widow, to Tyrone County, Ire- 
land, she reared her family, consisting of five sons 
and one daughter, in the Presbyterian faith, al- 
though the family soon after landing in Ireland, she 
and all her children, united with the Methodist So- 
ciety. On their removal to the United States so far 
as is known they all remained in the Methodist faith. 
On his mother's side they were originally Baptists, 
but subsequently also became Methodists. 

Simpson's home in Cadiz, Ohio, seems to have 
been the headquarters of the itinerant and for church 
services. Boehm, the traveling companion of Bishop 
Asbury, on his western tour in 181 1, says that As- 
bury then baptized the boy not yet one year old. 

The bishop's memory of events ran back to when 
he was about three years of age, when he had a deep 
reverence for God, and the habit of prayer taught 
by his mother he never abandoned. From his child- 
hood he regularly read God's Word, and he was 
never guilty of profanity or licentiousness, and never 



no THE PEERLESS ORATOR. 



committed any known act contrary to the Christian 
character. When a boy he heard Bishops McKen- 
dree, and Soule, Dr. Bascom and Dr. Elliott preach, 
all of whom produced profound religious impres- 
sions, but he was not yet a member of the church. 
He had witnessed some wonderful manifestations of 
spiritual power, but did not enter into them person- 
ally, and it was not until he was about seventeen 
years of age that he went to a morning class meeting 
and gave his name as a member of the church, al- 
though at the time he said he had no consciousness 
of acceptance with God. However, he at once be- 
gan active religious work, holding young men's 
prayer meetings, proposing a Sunday School as none 
was then in existence in Cadiz, and he secured about 
sixty dollars for a Sunday School library. 

Having spent three years in the study of medicine, 
his mother and his friends thought he ought to 
abandon that practice and become a preacher of the 
Gospel. At the suggestion of Dr. Charles Elliott, 
after a free conversation with the young man, at the 
quarterly conference held in New Athens, Ohio, un- 
der the direction of Rev. Wesley Browning, presid- 
ing elder, he was licensed to preach late in 1833, hav- 
ing been licensed to exhort April 1, 1833, by Wm. 
Tipton. He was then in his twenty-second year. 



RELIGIOUS LIFE— A PARALLEL. 1 1 1 



This same quarterly conference also recommended 
him for admission on trial in what was then the 
Pittsburg conference, embracing in its western 
boundary Harrison and Belmont Counties. He was 
accordingly received and sent to the St. Clairsville 
Circuit, O., under Revs. J. P. Kent and A. Calen- 
der, with Wesley Browning as his presiding elder. 

Up to this period we have not stated any specific 
time when Simpson was converted or made a dis- 
tinct profession of religion. From 183 1 to 1834 
he had a strange religious experience, as indi- 
cated in his diary. This was the fullest and most 
consecutive diary he ever kept. On December 
12th of the first year, hearing his Uncle Tingley 
say, having been sick, how happy he was, 
it made him feel sorrowful that he had not 
that clear sense of his moral standing which 
he could wish, and so he prayed, "O God. 
create in me a clean heart and renew a right spirit 
within me." Later he said he felt that much he need- 
ed more religion ; much he longed after the evidence 
of his acceptance with the Holy One of Israel. In 
1832 while attending a camp meeting he said that 
he obtained some fresh spiritual strength. He 
was enabled in a greater degree to yield his heart 
to Jesus. After a prayer meeting he felt much 



ii2 THE PEERLESS ORATOR. 

condemned, thought he had no religion, felt as 
though he had no power in prayer and prayed 
for the awakening energy of the Holy Spirit. 
The bishop afterwards said, that he had come 
to a young man's years before making a pub- 
lic profession of religion. His doubts con- 
cerning his spiritual life often troubled him, even 
down to this second year as pastor in Pittsburg. He 
said, "Oh my treacherous heart, what will become of 
thee? I feel that I am far from God; almost dead 
and buried in sin and hardness of heart; I know 
there is still hope through Jesus, but whether I shall 
ever reach my Father's house and in His bosom rest, 
seems very uncertain. My prayers, my sermons, 
my all, are I fear, abomination in the sight of God. 
Oh, my soul, when will it know, feel and do better?" 
Not in all my conversation with the bishop concern- 
ing his Christian experience, nor in any of his 
preaching, did I ever hear of a certain time or place 
from which he dated the beginning of his Christian 
life. It may be said that his characteristic modesty 
concerning himself or his efforts would preclude 
such a reference. It is very true that seldom was 
anything personal related in his sermons, although 
he had traveled widely and had observed keenly 
wherever he went. And it may be alluded to here 



RELIGIOUS LIFE— A PARALLEL. 113 



as a possible explanation that the previous Presby- 
terian training of his mother and uncle may have so 
remained with them that the boy under their in- 
fluence had never been urged to obtain a definite 
Christian experience according to the Methodist 
teaching of those times as to time and place of con- 
version. 

We have been inclined as we have heard him refer 
to his early life, and as we have reviewed his writ- 
ings on this subject to closely parallel his early re- 
ligious life with that of John Wesley. Of course 
there are many divergences and bold contrasts, such 
as the strange mysticism and almost open supersti- 
tions as noises and ghosts found in the early religi- 
ous life of Wesley ; but in his case these things were 
then in the religious atmosphere of England and the 
Continent. But there is not even a faint hint of 
these things anywhere in the life of the bishop. For 
ten years Wesley was in conflict with himself and 
others on the subject of his personal religious life. 
On his return from Georgia, he wrote : "I went to 
America to convert the Indians, but oh, who shall 
convert me?" In later years he wrote that_he was 
not sure that he was not converted before this. He 
says, however, that from the age of twenty-five to 
thirty-five years, he was only "Almost a Chris- 



THE PEERLESS ORATOR. 



tian." He gives the credit to Peter Bohler for 
leading him into the clearer light. He dates his 
conversion May 24, 1738, aged 35. He had been 
preaching about ten years. It was at a meeting in 
Fetter Lane, London, May 1, 1738, that he had 
united with the first Moravian Society, and twenty- 
three days after this he was at a meeting of Moravi- 
ans in Aldersgate Street, when he says, "I felt my 
heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ, 
Christ alone, for salvation." If this were all, all 
would be satisfied with it, but on October 23, of the 
same year, he writes, "but this witness of the Spirit 
I have not, but I wait patiently for it." This was in 
harmony with what he had written October the 14th, 
"I can not find in myself the love of God or of 
Christ — I have not that joy in the Holy Ghost, nor 
the full assurance of faith." On January 4, 1839, 
he wrote that which almost startles us now : "But 
that I am not a Christian at this day, I as assuredly 
know as that Jesus is the Christ." How shall we 
explain all this ? Not to elaborate we may say that 
the mists of early education and the vapors of Mo- 
ravian imagination led him into a labyrinth from 
which it was difficult to extricate himself, but out of 
which he came at last, having a settled and clear ex- 
perience and which he declared with great success 



RELIGIOUS LIFE— A PARALLEL. 115 



to others. In three weeks after his conversion in 
Aldersgate, he was on his way to Germany to learn 
more of this strange people. Wesley heard the 
greatest preacher among the Moravians in Germany, 
who taught that many are children of God long be- 
fore they receive the witness of the Spirit ; that many 
had the forgiveness of sins before they received this 
witness. On September 16, 1738, Wesley was back 
in London and those strange statements above were 
written after his return. So I think we find the 
source of his peculiar teachings and experiences. 
And Wesley had great trouble to free himself from 
these entanglements but to do so he cut loose entirely 
from the Moravian Society, and soon preached his 
great sermon on Free Grace, which became the most 
talked of and written about of all the sermons he 
ever preached, and as it was largely against election 
and reprobation, he did not derive these sentiments 
from the Moravians, as his parents were strong op- 
ponents to such doctrines. Ever after this his 
preaching was more consistent and attended with 
wonderful spiritual results. 

Returning we may say that out of the deep con- 
viction of his soul, no man in America ever preached 
a more powerful soul saving Gospel, free from tech- 
nicalities, free from mysticism, free from specula- 



n6 THE PEERLESS ORATOR. 



tion and free from philosophy, than did Bishop 
Simpson. However, he was always very modest 
in his references to his personal religious experience. 
Also he seldom in his discourses, even in times of the 
greatest warmth and glow, would refer to his per- 
sonal life. He had seen so much of what he regard- 
ed as religious extravagance, closely bordering on 
fanaticism, among different denominations that he 
determined to keep safely clear from it. But no man 
who heard him could doubt but that in his great 
heart there were at times great tidal waves of spir- 
itual life and at all times there was present the con- 
sciousness of the divine life within. In his preach- 
ing and in his experience he did 

"Cleave ever to the sunnier side of doubt, 
And cling to Faith beyond the forms of Faith." 

Seldom indeed during the delivery of a sermon 
did he pause to give expression to personal feelings, 
however joyous they might be. Quite common, 
however, was it for him to close his discourses with 
the most inspiring ejaculations such as Hallelujah, 
Amen and Amen. In the enthusiasm which usually 
followed he did not usually say anything more than, 
well, we have had a good time, the Lord be praised. 
Yet there could not be discovered the slightest tint of 
self praise. In listening to others speak or preach 



RELIGIOUS LIFE— A PARALLEL. 117 



you could not hear him say Amen, or glory to God 
which was then much more common than now, but 
this was no sign of a lack of appreciation as his very 
countenance expressed the opposite. There was in 
his very nature a kind of self-contained imperious- 
ness which might he misunderstood by those who 
did not know so well the other qualities of his nature. 
He could meet judges, governors, diplomats, presi- 
dents and kings without a tremor of nervousness or 
the slightest loss of self-possession, and perhaps no 
one of our bishops ever met so many dignitaries of 
our own and other lands. And such was the peace 
and purity of tone of his very presence that nothing 
would be introduced offensive to his character or his 
holy office. He admired truly great men and kept 
himself in sympathetic touch with them and this is 
one reason why I have in another place briefly men- 
tioned some of them. They admired the steady 
flow of his religious life more than if it had been the 
bubbling of a pearly fountain. 



n8 THE PEERLESS ORATOR. 



CHAPTER X. 

Popular Preacher. 

From childhood Bishop Simpson had occasional 
thoughts that he should be a preacher, and some 
times he had mental agony concerning the subject 
but mentioned the matter to no one, but finally made 
known to his mother his thoughts, when she replied : 
"My son, I have been looking for this hour ever 
since you were born", and that she and his father 
had consecrated him to God from infancy, and had 
prayed that he might become a minister. And this 
conversation settled his mind. He had thoughts of 
the law as did Martin Luther and John Calvin, but 
being feeble in health and weak in voice, he feared he 
could never try a case. He was more inclined to 
the medical profession and, as we have seen, had 
completed a course of study and had received his 
diploma and entered upon the practice. But Dr. 
Elliott and other friends advised him to abandon 
that profession and enter the ministry. His uncle 
seemed to favor this course for one Sunday evening 
the church in Cadiz, O., being full and no preacher 
present, the uncle came to him and requested him to 



POPULAR PREACHER. 119 



address the people. And this was his first religious 
address to a public audience. 

Simpson was licensed to exhort April 1, 1833, by 
Rev. William Tipton in Cadiz, Ohio, and was li- 
censed to preach a few weeks after this at New 
Athens, Ohio, by Wesley Browning, and was also 
recommended to the ensuing annual conference for 
admission. He preached his first sermons as a local 
preacher on the same day at New Athens and Union- 
town, Ohio. His text at New Athens was, "Walk 
while ye have the light." In the next May, 1833, 
he opened an office as a physician in his home in 
Cadiz, and everything indicated that he would have 
a good practice. The annual conference met in 
Meadville, Pa., July 17, 1833, Bishop Roberts pre- 
siding, when Simpson was admitted on trial with 
Wesley Smith, James L. Read, William Hunter, 
Simon Elliott, Cornelius D. Battelle and John Coil 
and eighteen others. By an arrangement he was 
to preach alternately between Cadiz and St. Clairs- 
ville to accommodate his medical practice, and to be 
at home as much of the time as possible on account 
of the prolonged sickness of his sister, but most of 
all to test his physical strength as a preacher. His 
sister died of consumption late in the fall and in 
March, 1834, he closed his office and resolved to de- 



120 



THE PEERLESS ORATOR. 



vote his entire time to the ministry on a three weeks* 
circuit, having thirty-f our appointments. 

As the annual conferences were held in July, he 
received eighteen dollars and seventy-five cents, as 
he received nothing while he continued the practice 
of medicine. This circuit was a severe test of his 
physical endurance. He thought afterward that the 
horse-back riding even on such a rough circuit had 
been of great benefit to his health, but it must not be 
forgotten that he did not enter on full circuit work 
until after the severity of winter had passed. I have 
heard him speak of these hardships and what a prov- 
idential blessing they were to him. He also spoke 
with great pleasure of an Englishman living near St. 
Clairsville, a class leader and steward, a Mr. Tho- 
burn, the father of Bishop Thoburn of India, and a 
man of deep piety who had greatly encouraged 
him in his work. 

The next annual conference met at Washington, 
Pa., July 1 6, 1834. Bishop Soule presiding. He and 
Dr. Babcock were guests of Dr. McKinney. then 
president of Washington College. It was the custom 
then to have preaching in the forenoon and after- 
noon, and Simpson preached one morning on, "Let 
us lift up our hearts with our hands unto God in the 
heavens.'' The young preachers were examined in 



POPULAR PREACHER. 121 



the course of study, and then allowed to return 
home, but he remained a day or two, but returned 
home without knowing where he was to be sent. He 
was sent to Pittsburg with Thomas Hudson and 
William Plunter as associate pastors. His friends 
advised him not to go as in the condition of his 
health it was almost equivalent to going to his death. 
However, he went by stage to Steubenville and by 
boat to Pittsburg and was kindly received by James 
Verner, on Penn Avenue who afterwards became his 
father-in-law. His first evening in the city was 
spent at a prayer-meeting in Smithfield Street 
Church. The first Sunday he preached in Smithfield 
Street Church on Ezekiel's vision of the valley of 
dry bones, and in the evening at Liberty Street on "I 
determined not to know anything among you save 
Jesus Christ and Him crucified". What wonderful 
subjects with which to begin his ministry in Pitts- 
burg! There were two principal churches, as we 
have mentioned, with occasional preaching in Birm- 
ingham, Allegheny Town and other places. For 
pastoral work the charge was divided among the 
three pastors and Simpson had from Wayne Street 
to Bayardstown and also the Hill District. Here he 
soon became acquainted with some eminent Metho- 
dists, with whom he formed life long attachments, 



i22 THE PEERLESS ORATOR. 



and among them was Henry D. Sellers, M. D., a 
man who for forty years occupied the highest posi- 
tion in his profession in this city. He was connect- 
ed with Liberty Street Church from its organization, 
and then became active in the organization of Christ 
Church. Besides holding all the other offices in the 
church, he was a most acceptable and instructive 
local preacher, and was president of the Centenary 
Board and a trustee in the Western University, and 
also in the Pittsburg Female College. His wife was 
a sister of Bishop Emory, of the Methodist Episco- 
pal Church. He also made the acquaintance of 
John Wrenshall, an Englishman and local preacher. 
He was a merchant on Market Street between 
Fourth and Fifth Streets. He was the grandfather 
of Mrs. President Grant. It was at his house where 
Simpson's father died in June 1812, when he was a 
little less than one year old, his father being a clerk 
in his store and soon after his mother returned to 
Cadiz, Ohio. Among others who became close 
friends of the bishop were Mr. Cooper, the first 
Methodist class leader in Smithfield Street, and Mr. 
Shea. 

The next conference was held in Liberty Street 
Church, July 22, 1835, Bishop Andrew presiding, 
when an unusually large class was admitted, thirty- 



POPULAR PREACHER. 123 



six. Here Simpson was ordained deacon by Bishop 
Andrew, and was returned to Pittsburg. This year 
the two churches separated, and Simpson took 
charge of Liberty Street. He felt the great respon- 
sibility, especially as there was great rivalry between 
the churches, but he threw himself with all his great 
energy into his work, and he had great success and 
before the year closed such was the good feeling be- 
tween the churches that he and Charles Cook, the 
pastor at Smithfield Street, exchanged pulpits. This 
year he began in connection with Dr. Charles Elliott 
what eventuated in the founding of the Book De- 
pository in Pittsburg. This year also understand- 
ing German, he felt a deep interest in the German 
people of the city, and gathered together a number, 
one of whom was a class leader, and German preach- 
ing was held in a private house, and this was the be- 
ginning of German Methodism in Pittsburg, and 
was before the opening of German Missions under 
Dr. Nast. But to him the most important event of 
the year was his marriage by Rev. Z. H. Coston to 
Ellen Holmes Verner, November 3rd, 1835, having 
been engaged since the 19th of September, and he 
being twenty-four years of age. They took their 
wedding trip on the Steamer Beaver down to Liver- 
pool, O., for a few days, where his mother, uncle 



124 



THE PEERLESS ORATOR. 



and married sister, McCullough, were living a short 
distance below the town. Of this marriage he said 
that the whole arrangement appeared to be peculiar- 
ly providential. And until the next conference he 
made his home with the Verner family on Penn 
Avenue. 

The next conference met in Wheeling, Va., July 
20, 1836, with Bishop Soule as president. It was 
at this conference that Simpson made his first speech 
and that advocating the continuance of the Pitts- 
burg Christian Advocate with Dr. Hunter as editor. 
While some wished to discontinue it, the bishop 
carried his point by two to one. Here he was ap- 
pointed to Williamsport, now Monongahela City, 
Pa., and they moved to the town and went to house- 
keeping in a one-story building, with a sitting room, 
off the side of which were two small bedrooms, and 
near which was a kitchen. The rent was fifty dol- 
lars. The church there was a substantial brick edi- 
fice without much beauty, but with an embarrassing 
debt. He set himself to work and soon secured 
enough subscriptions to cancel the debt. A little 
after the middle of the conference year, he was elect- 
ed professor of natural science in Allegheny College 
at Meadville, so he left for the college the latter part 
of April, 1837, and the pulpit was supplied until the 



POPULAR PREACHER. 125 



next conference, which was held in Steubenville 
July 19, 1837, Bishop Roberts presiding, when 
Simpson was ordained elder. Thus ended his four 
year's life as a regular Methodist itinerant 
preacher. 

It will be of more than local interest to give a ful- 
ler account of Smithfield Street and Liberty Street 
Churches and some of the principal persons who 
were associated with Simpson while he was a pastor 
and afterwards resident bishop of Pittsburg. 

In 1 796 John Wrenshall located in Pittsburg. He 
had a store on the corner of Market and Fourth 
Streets. His granddaughter became Mrs President 
Grant. He had been a local preacher in England 
for sixteen years before coming to Pittsburg and 
twenty-five years a local preacher here. He preached 
his first sermon on the text, "Worship God", in the 
Presbyterian Church, a log structure on Wood 
Street, near Sixth Avenue. Finally being refused 
this he was invited by Mr. Peter Shiras to preach in 
the soldier barracks of Fort Pitt at the Point. Mr. 
Shiras was made the class leader, and here preach- 
ing was held for six years until 1802, when Mr. 
Shiras, who owned the property, sold it to General 
James O'Hara and Shiras returned to his former 
home in New Jersey. 



126 THE PEERLESS ORATOR. 



In 1803 Thomas Cooper, Sr., and family came to 
Pittsburg from England. He was made class leader 
but having to leave the fort, services were for some 
time held in the rear of Wrenshall's property. In 
1808 Thomas Cooper, Jr., gave a room in his stone 
house on the corner of Smithfield and Water Streets 
opposite where is now the Monongahela House. 

In June, 1810, a lot was purchased on First Street. 

During the "Radical" excitement from 1827 to 
1830, some of the members of Smithfield Street 
Church organized a society and purchased a lot on 
the corner of Liberty Avenue and Fourth Street 
from Anthony Dravo in 1831, and the church much 
in general form as it is now was erected in 1832, and 
Rev. Wesley Browning was the architect. Until 
1837 this and the Smithfield Street Church acted un- 
der one charter and then the Liberty Street Church 
secured a charter and was from that time indepen- 
dent of the other church. In 1835, however, each 
was made a station and Charles Cooke was at Smith- 
field Street and Matthew Simpson at Liberty Street. 

Rev. William H. Kincaid, A. M., was a boy in 
Pittsburg about ten years of age when Bishop Simp- 
son was appointed to Liberty Street, and a Sunday 
School scholar in that church, and he became a firm 
and life-long friend and great admirer of the 



POPULAR PREACHER. 127 



bishop. He was on the original roll of the mem- 
bership of Liberty Street Church which was 
made in 1831. He was a local preacher and for 
twenty years was secretary of the National Local 
Preachers Association. For many years he was 
assistant editor of the Pittsburg Christian Advo- 
cate. He was also president of the Young Men's 
Bible Society and president of the Young Men's 
Christian Association. He was a man of modest 
and sweet spirit and reported the bishop's ser- 
mons and addresses for the newspapers when- 
ever he came to Pittsburg and was his life-long 
correspondent. 

Pittsburg Conference was held in Liberty Street, 
July, 1835, when Simpson and Charles Cooke were 
stationed in Pittsburg and this year the churches 
separated and Cooke had Smithfield Street, and 
Simpson had Liberty Street, which had the largest 
congregation in the city. In 1832 Alfred Brunson 
was the pastor of Allegheny Town, and from 
this on it appears regularly in the minutes. In 
1835 Birmingham had G. D. Kinnear as pastor, 
and from this onward was a regular appoint- 
ment, and Pittsburg Circuit was supplied by 
John Spencer, so these outlying appointments 
gradually dropped off from Smithfield and Lib- 



i28 THE PEERLESS ORATOR. 



erty Street churches, so that Cooke and Simp- 
son centered their work in the two churches 
and became very friendly, often exchanging pulpits. 

In 1836 Cooke was elected a delegate to the Gen- 
eral Conference, and in 1840 was again delegate and 
was elected editor of the Pittsburg Advocate. He 
was for twenty-two years a faithful secretary of the 
conference. In 1855 he was transferred to the 
Philadelphia Conference, where in 1870 he preached 
his semi-centennial sermon. The bishop said of him 
that he was gentle and amiable and yet firm, an able 
preacher and greatly beloved by his friends. 

When Simpson was appointed to Pittsburg at the 
Washington, Pa., Conference in 1834, Thomas M. 
Hudson was in charge and William Hunter was his 
associate, Pittsburg being a circuit of four or five ap- 
pointments. Simpson and Hunter being single, they 
boarded with the Hudson family where they had a 
pleasant home. The bishop said of Hudson that he 
frequently thought him in exhortation equal to any 
man he had ever heard. He was a good preacher 
but not superior. He was thirteen years a presiding 
elder and four times a member of the General Con- 
ference. Smithfield and Liberty Street were the 
principal churches where services were held three 
times on Sunday. There was also preaching in the 



POPULAR PREACHER. 129 



afternoon in Bayardstown, later the Fifth Ward, 
and also preaching Sunday morning and evening in 
Birmingham, now the South Side, in a small church 
then recently built, all of which required three ser- 
mons each Sunday from each of these pastors. 

Hudson was born in Huntingdon County, Pa., 
November 20th, 1799, and died in Brooke County, 
W. Va., December 16th, 1881, aged 82 years. So 
much like Simpson his early life was amid hardship, 
his father having died when he was young, leaving 
his widow the care of eleven children. When the 
Pittsburg Conference was organized in 1825, he was 
one of its 46 members. For 5 1 years he was an ef- 
fective preacher, filling most of the important sta- 
tions in the conference at that time. 

Henry D. Sellers, M. D., was another esteemed 
friend of Bishop Simpson. He was a man of fine 
intellect and an eminent pharmacist and physician 
standing among the foremost in his profession. He 
was a member and local preacher in Liberty Street 
until Christ Church was built, in whose organization 
he took an active part when he transferred his mem- 
bership to that church. He co-operated with the 
bishop in founding the Pittsburg Female College and 
he was a man whose counsels Simpson listened to 
with great respect when he came to Liberty Street 



130 THE PEERLESS ORATOR. 



as pastor, and he spoke of him as a man of far more 
than ordinary intellect. He had married the sister 
of Bishop Emory of the M. E. Church. I know of 
no man who listened to the advice of intelligent lay- 
men more carefully than did Bishop Simpson. 
Father Cooper, as he was called, of Smithfield Street 
Church, and Dr. Sellers of Liberty Street Church 
were instrumental in having him returned to Pitts- 
burgh the second year. It was during this year 
1 835-1 836 that Simpson jointly with Dr. Elliott, 
then editor of the Advocate, started the Pittsburg 
Book Depository on a small scale. After Simpson 
was elected bishop and took up his residence in Pitts- 
burg Dr. Sellers was a frequent caller at his home 
and remained a life-long friend. Now, when we 
think of his great influence as a preacher we are sad- 
ly reminded of what Tennyson says 

"Some high-thoughted moods and moulds of mind 
Can never be remodeled or expressed 
Again by any later century." 

Bishop Simpson was a preacher sui generis, as 
every successful preacher is. He was no copyist, he 
was no reader. In his preaching he did not follow 
Wesley like he did in his daily habits especially in 
his earlier ministry. Until he was eighty-five years 
old Wesley was a reader of his sermons. When go- 



POPULAR PREACHER. 131 



ing into the pulpit he found he had no sermon and 
hastening down the pulpit stairs to the vestry a 
woman asked him the cause of his confusion, and 
said, can you not trust the Lord for a good sermon ? 
And going back to the pulpit he says he preached 
extempore with great freedom to himself and ac- 
ceptance to the people and he says that never after 
that did he take a written sermon into the pulpit. 
Beecher went to Indianapolis in 1839 the year Simp- 
son went to Greencastle as president. They were 
very intimate. Phillip Brooks and Charles Spurgeon 
called Beecher the Shakespeare of the modern pulpit 
but what was the leading thought in this utterance, 
we have no means of knowing. If they meant his 
pictorial style this would be true and it is said that 
the highest genius is pictorial. Beecher was pictori- 
al by illustration but Simpson by description. 
Beecher made all the bells in his belfry ring but 
Simpson rang but one but that was like the great 
bell of Moscow. And whether intentional or not 
Beecher would create uproars of laughter but Simp- 
son would create great sunwaves of spiritual motion. 
Simpson thought of his text as did Beecher as being 
the gate to the sermon through which to pass and ex- 
plore something more majestic than the garden of 
the gods. He did not swing on that gate as some 



132 THE PEERLESS ORATOR. 

do until it creaked because of too much hard usage. 
He looked through his text as a telescope and what 
visions of glory passed before his eyes and with what 
photographic splendor he could make the people be- 
hold them \ 



EMINENT BISHOP. 133 



CHAPTER XL 
Eminent Bishop. 

It has been a debated question which develops the 
highest pulpit efficiency, a settled pastorate or an 
itinerancy, and we do not think that the whole truth 
lies on either side. It may be that the first cultivates a 
monotone and seldom reaches the fortissimo or the 
pianissimo, or the widest range and greatest variety 
of pulpit power. Such men as Beecher, Talmage, 
Brooks and others by their lectures and public ad- 
dresses received in large measure the supposed bene- 
fits derived from an itinerancy. John Wesley, 
Whitefield and Summerfield became the great 
preachers they were by reason in good part of the 
frequent change of location and congregations. Of 
course, we must admit all the while the presence of 
the native and acquired talent without which there 
would be at least comparative failure. 

When Bishop Simpson became professor, and 
president of a college, and an editor of an influential 
Christian periodical, he was also each Sunday and 
often during the week days engaged as a preacher 
or lecturer, and each occasion brought out the best 
and strongest in him. He selected strong and com- 



i 3 4 THE PEERLESS ORATOR. 



prehensive and inspiring texts, following closely 
Wesley's advice on this subject. On his first circuit, 
St. Clairsville, Ohio, he used such texts as these: 
"Are the consolations of God small with thee"; 
"Though he were a son, yet learned he obedience by 
the things which he suffered ; and being made perfect 
he became the author of eternal salvation unto all 
them that obey him" ; "He that is not with me is 
against me, and he that gathereth not with me scat- 
tered" ; "But the Scripture hath concluded all under 
sin that the promise by faith of Jesus Christ might 
be given to them that believe"; "For God sent not 
his son into the world to condemn the world" ; "In 
whom we have redemption through his blood, even 
the forgiveness of sins"; "Being now justified by 
his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through 
him"; "That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth 
the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that 
God raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved" ; 
"Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the 
law" ; "Behold the fire and the wood, but where is the 
lamb for the burnt offering?" His first texts used 
in Pittsburg were EzekiePs vision of the dry bones, 
and, "I determined to know nothing among you save 
Jesus Christ and him crucified". After these he used 
the following texts : "The scepter shall not depart 



EMINENT BISHOP. 135 



from Judah nor a law giver from between his feet 
until Shiloh come and unto him shall the gathering 
of the people be" ; "His name shall be called Won- 
derful, Counselor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting 
Father, the Prince of Peace" ; "lam not ashamed of 
the Gospel of Christ for it is the power of God unto 
salvation" ; "None of these things move me" ; "This 
is the victory that overcometh the world, even your 
faith"; "Wherefore seeing we also are compassed 
about with so great a cloud of witnesses". Perhaps 
the great master text, that which seemed to give him 
the greatest uplift and clearest vision was, "God for- 
bid that I should glory save in the cross of Christ". 
I heard him preach from that text at the dedication 
of the church in Sharpsburg, Pa., of which I was 
pastor at that time. Perhaps no sermon was ever 
preached in that town which produced so profound 
an impression and which the people remember so 
well. I have heard him often but I think never 
when his whole being seemed lifted into a higher 
spiritual realm. 

Bishop Simpson was a regular and close reader of 
the Bible, especially in his earlier ministry, and he 
was constantly on the look-out for great texts which 
he copied with whatever suggestions came to him at 
the time. It was some years before he saw a book 



136 THE PEERLESS ORATOR. 



of skeleton sermons, and then never used them. His 
uncle had grei: concern about his methc i of prepar- 
ing sermons, and sent him while in Pittsburg several 
expositions and outlines, but we do not know 
whether he used them or not. His uncle gave him 
wise advice when he said that he should never quote 
a text to prove what it does not say : to remember 
how Euclid would argue, and try to make an argu- 
ment equally conclusive in divinity ; to never find al- 
lusions where they are not natural, as the proving 
too much proves nothing. He said the theologians 
of his day were trying to make the Scriptures prove 
every principle of geology and natural philosophy, 
which he regarded as an extreme error, hut that the 
Scriptures were intended, only to teach morality 
and religion ; and that he should be content with do- 
ing good that will shine in eternity. On his continu- 
ance in Pittsburg the second year, being so young in 
the conference, the uncle said that he was a good 
deal surprised at his being continued in Pittsburg, 
but his continuance there was no doubt providential. 
Simpson said he never wrote but one sermon and de- 
livered it memoriter.and he thought it such a fail- 
ure, and his friends told him so. that he never under- 
took it again. He made careful outlines of his ser- 
mons but never took his notes into the pulpit, and 



EMINENT BISHOP. 137 



these outlines and notes were seldom preserved. He 
determined at all hazards to be an extemporaneous 
speaker, and we would have but little of his sermons 
today had it not been that almost always, especially 
on important occasions, reporters for the press were 
present and thus published his sermons. He told 
me that he had never had any quarrel with reporters 
for they sometimes made him to say some beautiful 
things which he never did say! However, his ser- 
mons reported as delivered always made good Eng- 
lish, but lacked the magnetic influence of his pres- 
ence. It is worthy of record that Bishop Simpson 
regarded the four year course of study required of 
young men before admission to full authority in the 
ministry in the Methodist Church as an unnecessary 
hardship. He believed that many a good and great 
prospective preacher has thus been ruined during 
those four years as in that time his manner of pre- 
paring and delivering sermons would be more or less 
fixed for life. He believed these studies should be 
required in his college life or seminary course, or 
should be distributed along through more years of 
his ministry. 

It was during his presidency of Asbury Uni- 
versity, Greencastle, Indiana, where he did most of 
his early heroic work as a preacher. His first annu- 



138 THE PEERLESS ORATOR. 



al conference in this state which he attended was 
held in Lawrenceburg and a sermon was to be 
preached on the Centennial of Wesleyan Methodism, 
which is dated from 1739. Although Bishops 
Roberts and Morris were both present, the duty fell 
upon Simpson and he chose as his text Ezekiel's vis- 
ion of the waters, and as this conference embraced 
the whole state and part of Michigan, this at once 
favorably introduced him to the preachers of these 
states. The sermon was one of great power. The 
trustees advised him to travel over the country and 
preach and lecture to awaken enthusiasm in the in- 
terest of the college, and this meant a hardship most 
difficult to fully appreciate at this time. Wherever 
he went the thoughts of young men were turned 
towards Asbury University, and soon a great revival 
spread among the students so that for some time 
recitations were almost entirely suspended. Not in- 
frequently he preached Saturday night, and on Sun- 
day, and lectured Monday. At a camp-ground, near 
Greencastle, the bishop preached one Monday from 
"Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision", 
and this produced an indescribable sensation, and 
one says who was there, when the speaker sat down 
the excitement was uncontrollable for more than an 
hour, and some are still living who vividly remem- 



EMINENT BISHOP. 139 



ber the wonderful occasion as it has been handed 
down by them. I suppose that no state in the Union 
has so many towns and churches in which he deliver- 
ed so many masterly sermons and the memory of 
which has survived the many great changes in the 
Commonwealth. 

Bishop Simpson was in England in 1857, m I ^7°» 
and in 1881, and in each case he stirred English 
Methodism to its very centre, and now is seen in 
Wesley's Chapel in City Road a full life sized por- 
trait of this world-famed pulpit orator. Thus for 
nine years Simpson as an evangel traveling through- 
out the state and much of the territory he passed 
over a number of times. 

In 1848 he was elected editor of the Western 
Christian Advocate, Cincinnati, O. Concerning his 
preaching during the next four years not much is 
known, as such was the intensity of public and na- 
tional and ecclesiastical affairs that his entire energy 
seems to have been demanded in the editorial office. 

But when he was elected in 1852 to the episcopal 
office, in the plan of episcopal work he was assigned 
to the West Virginia, Pittsburg, Erie and North 
Ohio Conferences, and he at once took up his work 
with all his former vigor. Returning to Pittsburg 
from the general conference the first Sunday, June 



THE PEERLESS ORATOR. 



6, he spent as follows : He heard Rev. Burkitt preach 
a missionary sermon in the morning, at two he ad- 
dressed a German Sunday School, at half past two 
he addressed the Smithfield Street Sunday School, 
at three he administered the sacrament at Liberty 
Street Church, and at night he preached to a large 
audience in Smithfield Street Church , "So then 
every one of us shall give account of himself to 
God". In two days he was on his way by the boat 
Atlanta to Brownsville, where he took the stage to 
Uniontown, Pa., where he looked over the old 
scenes of his student life in Madison College. Here 
he took the stage to Morgantown, the seat of the 
West Virginia Conference, his first conference. He 
returned by the same route to Pittsburg and in five 
days was holding the Pittsburg Conference in 
Washington, Pa. He was soon on his way to the 
Ohio Conference at Delaware. At some of these 
conferences he was pleased to fall in with Bishops 
Janes and Morris, from whom he learned much by 
way of administration. 

Ever since the division of the church in 1844, 
West Virginia has been divided between the church 
north and south, and between his conferences the 
bishop visited that region in order to learn the exact 
situation. He wrote December 28th, that for vari- 
ous reasons he was much depressed, and felt some- 



EMINENT BISHOP. 141 



times that he could not bear the physical efforts he 
had to make, together with the mental excitement 
under which he suffered, but must soon wear down 
to the grave, and yet he says his heart was not right 
— he needed to be created anew in Christ Jesus. 
Many will say, this sounds strange for a bishop, and 
yet I know he often suffered great mental depres- 
sion, but such would not be known except to his 
most intimate friends, and usually such states of de- 
spondency could be attributed to physical weakness 
and not to any real deficient spiritual attainments. 
On the last day of the year 1852 he said that it was 
the last day of the year, and alas, how poorly he had 
spent its fleeting moments, his time had gone to 
waste, his sands of life were ebbing out and should 
he ever live more to God's glory? On the first day 
of the year 1853, he knelt at his bedside, when he 
said that oh, that his life might be free from the de- 
fects of the past. 

After his return to Pittsburg from West Virginia, 
his labors were almost incessant. Sunday, January 
9th, he preached at Beaver Street in "Allegheny 
Town", from "If I forgot thee, O Jerusalem". At 
night he preached at South Pittsburg from "In 
whom ye also trusted after that ye heard the word 
of truth". March 13th, was another busy day. In 



THE PEERLESS ORATOR. 



the morning he preached in his former pulpit, Lib- 
erty Street, on "We have a more sure word of 
prophecy". At night he preached in Wesley Chapel 
on, "But we all with open face beholding as in a 
glass the glory of the Lord". These lines are suf- 
ficient to show with what intensity and courage he 
took up the arduous duties of the episcopal office, 
and whether in Texas or on the Pacific coast, to 
reach which he traveled by the way of the Panama 
railroad, severe hardships everywhere attended, and 
the wonder is constant as you follow his trail that 
his frail constitution did not wholly break down. 
Often he was attacked by fever with pain in his side, 
his eyes and in his lungs, and yet, perhaps this rough 
outdoor life as he often remarked did much to pro- 
long his life. 

In May 1857 he, with his son Charles, and Dr. 
McClintock, went to England, two of whom were 
delegates to the Wesleyan Conference, and in June 
they visited the Irish Conference, and also visited 
the grave of Richard Boardman at Cork, Ireland. 
He hastens on and preaches at Limerick, the place 
from which the Methodists, under the leadership of 
Embury, came to New York and became the nucleus 
of the society there, the first in America. He next 
preached in Dublin and Belfast, and it was not long 
until he was in July at the Wesleyan Conference. 



EMINENT BISHOP. 143 



He hastened on to the Continent to attend the Evan- 
gelical Alliance in Berlin. Here he had the excep- 
tional honor of preaching in the King's Church, and 
his sermon was on Christian Unity and was a pow- 
erful effort, and an Englishman who heard it said, 
"Ah, sir, that was preaching". Erom there he, with 
a party, went on and down the Danube to Constan- 
tinople, to Smyrna and Beyrout, where he took dan- 
gerously sick. He was sick nearly all the way down 
the Danube with malarial fever. This was in Sep- 
tember, as tourists now believe an unfavorable time 
to visit the Holy Land. Twice he despaired of liv- 
ing until morning, and began to give some messages 
to be taken home. One of these occasions was in 
Athens and the other in the Holy Land. Neverthe- 
less he visited Jerusalem, Nazareth, the Dead Sea, 
and other points not far away. He visited Alex- 
andria, Cairo and the pyramids and then sailed for 
Naples, Marsailles, Paris and London, where he was 
sick again. Finally arriving in Pittsburg he was 
sick most of the year 1858, a reaction from his tour 
or a return of his former troubles and many expect- 
ed his death. In the spring of 1859 he was able to 
hold his conferences, but omitted preaching, but in 
July he resumed his preaching, and in this year his 
family removed to Evanston, Illinois. The follow- 



THE PEERLESS ORATOR. 



ing winter he was in New York preaching almost 
every day and some times twice a day. 

As an administrator of discipline and president of 
annual and general conferences he was prompt, en- 
ergetic and conscientious in his work, and perhaps 
as few of his decisions were carried up to the Gener- 
al Conferences or reversed by the Judiciary Com- 
mittee of that body as any member of the Episcopal 
Board at any time in the church's history. Dr. 
Buckley says he had no superior as a presiding offi- 
cer. 

But that which gave Bishop Simpson his widest 
fame was his preaching. Some things as character- 
istics of his pulpit efforts may be mentioned. He 
never attempted the humorous, never made gri- 
maces, never performed antics, nor was he stagy. 
His gestures were not profuse, he never apologized, 
he never directly criticised or found fault, on the 
other hand he made his whole being contribute to 
his success. His voice was well keyed, his eyes 
sparkled with the truth, his whole frame often trem- 
bled with the power of his utterances, and often so 
perfectly did he forget his own personality that he 
seemed, like an aeroplane, to sail in a spiritual at- 
mosphere above his audiences. 

It was not until after Simpson was elected bishop 
that he became specially famous as an orator. It may 
be said of him as was said of Gladstone, that he was 



EMINENT BISHOP. 145 



the only man in the House of Commons who spoke 
in italics and like him also there was always a "go" 
in his address which was incomparable, there was 
not even time to cheer. And while Gladstone had the 
superior voice yet each had a bell-like cadence. 
Simpson's voice seldom failed and his last sentences 
were mostly as clearly spoken as the first and here 
again he is like Gladstone who could speak rapidly 
for four hours and his last sentence was full of pleas- 
ing resonance. And once more they were much 
alike in the carelessness of their apparel. Both were 
ready speakers, never halting for a word and like an 
ancient knight his armor was on, his spear poised 
and his foot in the stirrup. It has been said "see 
Naples and then die", and so when he was living it 
might be said see and hear Simpson and then die. 

While president of Asbury University, he was 
elected delegate to the General Conference of 1844, 
which met in the City of New York and adjourned 
June nth. This was the session when the Plan of 
Separation of the Southern Methodists from the 
Northern was proposed and great excitement pre- 
vailed. Simpson offered a resolution that Stephen 
Olin, John P. Durbin and Leonidas L. Hamline be a 
committee to prepare a statement of facts in relation 



146 THE PEERLESS ORATOR. 



to the case of Bishop Andrew to be entered upon the 
Journal, which was adopted. 

Simpson was again elected delegate in 1848, when 
the General Conference met in Pittsburg, Pa., at the 
Liberty Street Church, May 1st. Here he was ap- 
pointed on the committee to revise the Hymn Book 
and here also he was elected editor of the Western 
Christian Advocate. On motion of Simpson, second- 
ed by Daniel Curry, the conference adopted a series 
of resolutions declaring the "Plan of Separation" 
null and void. Many will regard this as the great- 
est mistake of his public life. 

Again he was elected delegate to the General Con- 
ference of 1852, which was held in Boston. At this 
time he had become well known throughout the 
church through the columns of the Western Chis- 
tian Advocate and his preaching. He was opposed 
to being elected bishop by most of the delegates from 
Ohio because he had not been a traveling preacher 
long enough, and because he then believed in mixed 
sittings and free pews. Some of the New England 
delegates opposed him as they wished him to become 
president of the University at Middletown, Con- 
necticut, and because they believed in pewed 
churches. And some delegates from the border 
states between the North and South opposed him be- 



EMINENT BISHOP. 147 



cause of his strong anti-slavery sentiments expressed 
in the Western Christian Advocate. But on the elec- 
tion of four bishops, all of which were elected on the 
first ballot, the conference then requiring only a ma- 
jority vote instead of a two-thirds vote as now, he 
received no votes out of 173 cast; Scott, 113; 
Baker, 90; Ames, 89. He said he had some mis- 
givings about his election as his health was still deli- 
cate and many doubted whether he would endure the 
hardships of the office, but he said as he had never 
in any manner solicited a vote for the position he re- 
solved to accept the position as providential. Before 
the close of the conference the bishops met and made 
their plan of work, and to Simpson fell the West 
Virginia Conference at Morgantown, Pittsburg, at 
Washington, Pa., the Erie, the North Ohio, and the 
Cincinnati Conferences. It was arranged that in 
the fall of 1853 he was to visit the Pacific slope as 
many emigrants had gone, especially to California 
during the gold excitement. 

The bishop in going to Morgantown went through 
Uniontown by the same route as when he came as 
a young man on foot from Cadiz, Ohio, ninety miles 
distant, living on one meal a day and a few crackers. 
He was much affected by this reminiscence and the 
changes which had taken place. Before leaving for 



148 THE PEERLESS ORATOR. 



the far west he spent much time among the churches 
in the Kanawha Valley and along the Ohio River 
trying to hold the border churches to the Northern 
Church. He returned to Pittsburg and preached in 
Beaver Street, now Arch Street, Wesley Chapel, 
now torn down, on the place now occupied by the 
incline plane at 17th street. He also preached in 
South Pittsburg and Liberty Street. 

In the mean time the bishop's family moved from 
Cincinnati to Pittsburg in their house on Penn Ave- 
nue. 

In 1853, December 20th, he sailed from New 
York to Aspinwall on the Isthmus of Panama on the 
most heroic trip of his life. The trip across the 
Isthmus was partly by train, partly by river and 
partly by mules, and New Year's Day, 1854, he 
found himself in the Panama, weak and feverish. 
But on he goes by ship up the coast amid many perils 
until they reached San Diego, but with a sublime 
heroism he soon reached San Francisco. Here he 
met the famous missionary and afterwards mission- 
ary bishop, William Taylar, who was in the midst 
of his street preaching in that city. He is soon push- 
ing on in the various rude modes of travel of that 
time in that region for Portland, Oregon, where he 
hoped to meet the Oregon Conference. That a man 




Simpson's Home, 
Pittsburg, Pa. 



EMINENT BISHOP. 149 



of such feeble constitution apparently should endure 
such exposure and hardships and yet survive about 
thirty years amid almost continuous and excessive 
labors will ever be considered among the wonders of 
heroic human life. 



i5o THE PEERLESS ORATOR. 



CHAPTER XII. 

Orator and Platform Speaker. 

It is said that oratory is a warrior's eye flashing 
from under a philosopher's brow. Perhaps it was 
never more true than of Bishop Simpson. Perhaps 
no man in our knowledge had greater difficulties in 
his way in becoming a public speaker than Bishop 
Simpson, an awkward personal appearance, a thin 
voice, a hatred to declamation, a weak constitution, a 
lack of confidence and a conviction from boyhood 
that he never could make a popular public speaker, 
these were all against him. Demosthenes with all 
his stammering never had such almost insuperable 
difficulties to overcome. When Simpson was twenty 
years of age he had not yet gained the necessary 
confidence. Then, after having led the class in 
church, he said, "But, oh, how lame was the per- 
formance". He continued to speak occasionally in 
class and at prayermeeting until he was licensed to 
exhort and also to preach. Against entering the 
ministry he had special objections, first he said he 
had no gift of speech. All through his studies his 
fellow students told him he could learn, but he could 
never be a speaker and he firmly believed he would 



PLATFORM SPEAKER. 151 



never make a speaker. But when he was twenty- 
two years of age he delivered an address by invita- 
tion to the students of Athens College, and as evi- 
dence of how it was received, the students had three 
hundred copies printed and the address was favor- 
ably noticed in a paper in St. Clairsville. During 
his four years in the ministry he paid but little atten- 
tion to outside matters such as lectures or addresses, 
but threw his whole energy into his ministerial work 
proper. While a professor in Allegheny College he 
had but small need of outside work, except preach- 
ing on Sunday. But it was during his nine years of 
presidency of Asbury University that at the sugges- 
tion of the Board of Trustees he traveled up and 
down through the state preaching on Sundays and 
lecturing on some phase of education during the 
week. In one of these tours he delivered twenty- 
three lectures, and it is probable that these were de- 
livered much like his sermons from mere outlines 
and these were probably destroyed. I have else- 
where referred to his inaugural address as president 
of the university,, and have furnished the principal 
points in that address which has always been regard- 
ed his masterpiece on education. One of his great 
addresses was delivered in Tremont Temple, Bos- 
ton, 1866, on the Centennial of American Method- 



THE PEERLESS ORATOR. 



ism. As usual his peroration was most inspiring 
when he said that the need of Methodism then at 
the close of the first century was not less fire, but 
more learning. We want rhetoric, but we want it 
set on fire of God. We want a learning, polished 
and yet sanctified whereby we may educate the peo- 
ple and at the same time lead them upward to God. 
In 1857 he was a delegate as we have said with Dr. 
McClintock, to the British Wesleyan Conference. 
One who was present speaks of the close of his ad- 
dress that the Bishop's legs were no longer unsteady, 
that he seemed to erect himself above himself, that 
his voice lost its wavering inflections and uncertainty 
of tone, his sentences flowed freely in clearer and 
higher form and his speech became earnest, effective, 
poetic, impassioned and thrilling. 

But it was during the Civil War that Bishop 
Simpson achieved his greatest reputation as a plat- 
form orator. He was prophetic enough to see the 
probable attempt to dissolve the Union of the States 
ever since the division of the church in 1844. There 
were seventeen years of political agitation which 
stirred his soul to its depths, and from 1861 and on- 
ward to his death President Lincoln well knew the 
influence of Bishop Simpson and hence they became 
very close friends. Often was he sent for to con- 



PLATFORM SPEAKER. 153 



suit concerning important measures, and it was 
known that Lincoln was contemplating issuing a 
proclamation freeing the slaves in the south. No 
wonder he hesitated as it was a greater measure than 
freeing the serfs of Russia or the slaves in the Brit- 
ish Colonies. He had no explicit constitutional au- 
thority to do so, and it could only be justified as a 
military measure. Bishop Simpson had often urged 
the President to assume the responsibility and the 
north was becoming impatient at the delay. Simp- 
son always had faith in the final outcome of the 
Civil War. He believed that : 

It will not always last, 

Therefore, be brave, 
And soon we all shall be 

Across the wave. 

Lincoln sent for him to come to Washington and 
in private council continued late at night when, as 
was often the case, the President asked him to pray 
before he left him, and the subject of their conver- 
sation was made the burden of the prayer, and when 
they arose Lincoln advanced and taking the bishop 
by the hand, he said, "I will do it." This I had 
from the lips of the bishop while engaged with him 
in his library on the Cyclopedia of Methodism. Of 
course other persons and influences were at work in 
securing the result. 



\ 



THE PEERLESS ORATOR. 



Soon after the adjournment of the general con- 
ference in Philadelphia, in 1864, it was expected that 
Lincoln would make the opening address at the San- 
itary Fair in that city, but such was the stress of na- 
tional affairs he could not leave Washington, and he 
sent a written request for Bishop Simpson to take 
his place, which he did. The bishop said, "This 
Sanitary Commission has already collected in money 
and values more than ten million of dollars, and the 
Christian Commission has also received large sums 
for its work. Nor are these sums merely the offer- 
ings of the wealthy. The old grandmother with 
failing sight has sat up on long winter evenings, bus- 
ily knitting for the poor soldier boy, and the little 
prattler has gathered a flower to add to your collec- 
tion of beauty". Referring to the woman's work 
further, he said, "I have seen her move with silent 
step among the couches of the sick and dying in the 
hospital, giving now the cordial and now the word 
of comfort and hope. It is then she became an angel 
of mercy, a worthy sister of the beloved Mary whom 
angels hailed." As he closed amid great applause 
the audience arose and gave three cheers for the 
bishop. When President Lincoln was assassinated, 
Bishop Simpson was at once called to Washington, 
and when the funeral arrangements were being 



PLATFORM SPEAKER. 155 



made he was selected to deliver the oration at 
Springfield, Illinois, where Lincoln was to be buried. 
In the cemetery and near the vault which contained 
the precious remains, the bishop delivered the eulogy 
which will doubtless remain among the national doc- 
uments in ages to come. Brief extracts follow : "At 
the announcement of his sad death the nation stood 
still. Men left their plows in the fields. The hum 
of manufactories ceased and the sound of the ham- 
mer was not heard. Busy merchants closed their 
doors, and in the Exchange the gold passed no more 
from hand to hand. More races have looked upon 
the procession for sixteen hundred miles, by day and 
by night, by sunlight, dawn, twilight and by torch- 
light, than ever before watched the progress of a 
procession on its way to a grave. Abraham Lincoln 
was a good man ; he was known as an honest, tem- 
perate, forgiving man; a just man; a man of noble 
heart in every way. This I know, he read the Bible 
frequently, loved it for its great truths, and he tried 
to be governed by its precepts. He believed in 
Christ, the Savior of sinners, and I think he was sin- 
cere in trying to bring his life into harmony with 
the principles of revealed religion. I doubt if any 
president has ever shown such trust in God or in 
public documents so frequently referred to divine 



156 THE PEERLESS ORATOR. 

aid". The bishop quoted that expression of the 
president which for elegance and beauty I doubt has 
ever been surpassed in the English language or in 
any other : "The mystic chords of memory which 
stretch from every patriot's grave shall yield a 
sweeter music when touched by the angels of our 
better nature." His peroration was as follows: 
"Chieftain, farewell. The nation mourns thee; 
mothers shall teach thy name to their lisping chil- 
dren; the youth of our land shall emulate thy vir- 
tues; statesmen shall study thy record, and from it 
learn lessons of wisdom. We crown thee as our 
martyr, and humanity enthrones thee as her trium- 
phant son. Hero, martyr, friend, farewell." The 
pathetic effect of that address may be faintly imag- 
ined, but it can never be fully portrayed by pen or 
tongue, and it is safe to say will never be surpassed. 
Another memorable occasion was when Bishop 
Simpson was called to Washington, February, 1866, 
to deliver the address as the Christian Commission 
was about to dissolve. It was in the House of Rep- 
resentatives with Speaker Colfax in the chair. He 
said in closing, "Workers of the Christian Commis- 
sion, continue to shine as stars. Your light cannot 
be hid. But the workers are not all here. Some 
fell by disease contracted while ministering in the 



PLATFORM SPEAKER. 157 



hospital. May they not be here now? These gal- 
leries are densely crowded. Are there not higher 
galleries ? Above this light beaming so so f tly upon 
us, may there not be purer and brighter lights ? May 
it not be that he, our martyred one, whose seat is va- 
cant there, but who cheered us twelve months since, 
looks lovingly upon the scene ? Brave workers, go 
to your fields. They are ripening for the harvest; 
work for Jesus and what your hands find to do, do it 
with your might." 

In 1 881 a delegated conference of the Methodism 
of the world convened in London. During its ses- 
sion the sad news reached that body announcing the 
death of President Garfield. Bishop Simpson was 
selected, although quite feeble, to deliver the me- 
morial address in Exeter Hall. About three thou- 
sand were present. Hon. James Russell Lowell, the 
ambassador of the United States, presided and de- 
livered an appropriate introductory address. Bishop 
Simpson then said: "When Garfield fell it is not 
America alone that mourns. Kings and princes 
gather around his bier and the queen of the greatest 
empire in the world drops a tear of sympathy with 
his widow and lays a wreath upon his tomb. God 
bless Queen Victoria for her womanly sympathy 
and her queenly courtesy. President Garfield crown- 



158 THE PEERLESS ORATOR. 



ed his virtues as a soldier and a statesman with the 
virtues of a true Christian life. I passed today the 
monuments of Wellington and Nelson, and it seemed 
to me the heads of those heroes were bowed in grief. 
As I passed Westminster Abbey also it seemed to 
me that the holy dead of past ages looked down with 
a greater solemnity and were waiting to be joined in 
that upper circle by the hero of the western land." 
The reference to the Queen in this address brought 
the entire audience to their feet and, a memorial 
service as it was, nevertheless they gave three pro- 
longed cheers. 

The oration of Bishop Simpson on "the Future of 
our Country" during the year 1864 was the master- 
piece of his life. This was delivered in many of 
the large cities, and by the request of President Lin- 
coln. The Union was trembling in the balance, 
there being a large peace party at the north and the 
southern army had won some great victories. No 
doubt the bishop well remembered what his uncle 
had written him at the beginning of the war three 
years before. He said, "The great, the irrepressible 
contest between liberty and slavery is on. There- 
fore it may be that the agitation of the slavery ques- 
tion both in Church and State is about to be put to 
rest forever by the destruction of the peculiar insti- 



PLATFORM SPEAKER. 159 



tution." What a wonderful prophecy uttered by 
this wise man ! This may have inspired one of the 
most impassioned utterances of this famous address, 
when he said : "I have one more impression that if 
this war lasts much longer slavery will be damaged. 
It is seriously damaged now, and I hope and desire 
that it may pass away quickly and let us see the last 
of it." That it might have a national effect, it was 
delivered in the Academy of Music, New York, 
Nov. 3rd, 1864, j ust before the national election, 
when Lincoln and McClellan were the presidential 
candidates. That large building was filled from 
pit to dome, and all standing room was occupied. 
The delivery of this address usually required about 
two hours, but strange to say no one has ever found 
among the bishop's papers a written line of this ad- 
dress. I suppose, therefore, that it was delivered 
from outline or points. It was widely published in 
the press, however, throughout the country. This 
address was delivered in Old City Hall, Pittsburg, 
October 19, 1864, about two weeks before its deliv- 
ery in New York, and was reported for the press by 
Rev. W. H. Kincaid, a life long friend of the bishop. 
It was published in the "Commercial", now the "Ga- 
zette Times", from which I have copied it in full. 
It is known that Bishop Simpson by his sublime 



i6o THE PEERLESS ORATOR. 



and patriotic address did much to encourage the peo- 
ple and sustain the government and the President 
during some of those dark days. There are some 
yet living who remember the high tide of enthusiasm 
at the time of the delivery of that address in Pitts- 
burg, Old City Hall, Market street. And as it has 
never appeared in any Methodist literature we give 
all of it that has been preserved. In reading it the 
reader will miss the ringing metallic tones of the 
speaker, and most of all will he miss that form 
which in times of inspiration swayed back and forth 
like a towering pine in the tempest. 

The great influence of Bishop Simpson upon the 
legislation of Congress, and especially upon the 
patriotic sentiment of the North, upon the army, 
and upon President Lincoln are matters worthy 
of historical record.. 

The following patriotic address was delivered in 
many places in the North, but perhaps in no other 
place did the enthusiasm reach the high tide it did 
in Pittsburg. 

Bishop Simpson, on stepping to the front of the 
platform in Old City Hall, was greeted with enthus- 
iastic applause. He said that in addressing that 
meeting he should be controlled entirely by his own 
sense of propriety as to the claims of his subject 




First Christ Methodist Episcopal Church, Penn Ave. 
Pittsburgh, Pa., Dedicated March 25, 1855. 



PLATFORM SPEAKER. 161 



upon which he was about to speak and his conception 
of what was due to the audience. He said : that at 
that moment one great thought occupied every mind, 
and one profound feeling moved every heart. All 
eyes were turned toward the front, and the ears of 
anxious men listened for the latest tidings; loving 
and lonely wives wait for dutiful husbands, and af- 
fectionate mothers long to see their sons now on the 
battlefield of their country, while many mourned 
and wept, and all were asking : When shall the end 
of these things be ? He had no power to prophesy, 
but history has one teacher and there we learned of 
the rise and fall of the nations. In history there 
was one grand lesson which was sustained through 
all the narrated vicissitudes of nations, and that was 
the crowning truth and assurance that God reigns; 
that He rules for the good of mankind, for their ruin 
never, except when they combine to plot against the 
Lord and His anointed. God's plans, when carried 
out, elevated and ennobled man, and if we could as- 
certain what was His will in regard to our nation's 
destiny — if we could discern what great object He 
had in view in allowing the conflict in which we were 
now engaged, then we could have confidence as to 
the result. 



1 62 THE PEERLESS ORATOR. 



Just at present we stood, as it were, at the centre, 
looking out upon our own struggle viewing with 
anxious minds, the probable effect of every move- 
ment, either in the army, at home, or in other lands, 
and saw coming events after the manner of the poet, 
"casting their shadows before." In the light of 
these events, the eloquent speaker said, he would 
approach his subject. In his estimation the cause 
of our country transcended all party issues, and 
it was far from his heart to deal in words of de- 
nunciation. Great principles were involved in 
the struggle in which we were engaged. 

He believed that there were but four possible is- 
sues to this war, and the first of these, as it ap- 
peared to him, was that the nation might be de- 
stroyed. Shall this nation be destroyed? (Cries 
of no, no.) On this question they had strong as- 
surances. No great nation had ever perished in 
a century from its birth. Eook where they 
would in ancient history, they were assured 
of this principle — Egypt, Assyria, Canaan, Israel, 
Greece, Rome, all had outlived centuries; in 
modern history, France, Germany, England and 
Russia had withstood the storms of centuries, and 
still remained, and if we perish, then God's plans 
must have changed. 



PLATFORM SPEAKER. 163 



The circumstances of our rise indicated that God 
hada greatmission for us. What land but this had 
been discovered under the impressions of the relig- 
ious idea? When Columbus conceived the idea of 
discovering the Western Empire he failed to ob- 
tain the means of its execution until, in his extrem- 
ity, he turned to Isabella, the pious Queen of Spain, 
and assured her that there was beyond the ocean 
undiscovered lands where the truths of religion 
should be disseminated, and she said: "Columbus 
shall have his ships, although I should sell my crown 
jewels," and Columbus got his ships and sailed for 
this Western World. God in His providence, how- 
ever, carried him to the West Indies, an event which 
gave them to Spain, and reserved America for Eng- 
lish civilization. That was a lesson from the his- 
tory of those days, three hundred years ago. The 
Pilgrim Fathers came in the "Mayflower' ' to the 
shores of New England and there planted their stan- 
dard resolved to worship God according to the con- 
victions of their own hearts, untrammelled by the 
thread-work of a State Church. Such were the cir- 
cumstances under which this nation had its birth. 
Twice had prayer been invoked — once when the col- 
onies were formed, and again when the Convention 
was assembled which gave us our present Constitu- 



1 64 THE PEERLESS ORATOR. 



tion, that Constitution against which unholy hands 
had been lifted, but which would withstand the as- 
sault and live for ages yet to come. (Applause.) 

This nation had done more than any other for hu- 
manity. Here Church and State had been dissev- 
ered and men worshipped God according to the 
dictates of their own hearts. This nation had done 
more than any other for the advancement of educa- 
tion in the establishment of common schools and col- 
leges, and in the education of females. It had ele- 
vated the human race, made cheap homes, admitted 
the rich and the poor alike to citizenship, to office, 
honor and emolument. All these advantages were 
opened to the humblest man in the nation, to the 
cabin boy as well as the man of wealth. The Pres- 
ident's chair and the Senate Chamber were equally 
within the legitimate scope of the citizen's aspira- 
tion, and the mother who held her infant proudly in 
her arms had a right to think that her babe might 
yet be President of the United States. Jackson had 
been a cabin boy, and Henry Clay had been the mill 
boy of the Slashes, and he had read somewhere in 
history of a rail-splitter becoming President of 
the United States. (Loud Applause.) 

This nation was an asylum for all nations, where 
no restrictions were placed upon the people. We 



PLATFORM SPEAKER. 165 



were a missionary people. We exerted a greater 
missionary influence than any other nation. This 
point was beautifully elaborated by the lecturer. Our 
history was one of honor. The people of this coun- 
try had never been betrayed. We had never 
shown bad faith to other nations. Reverently 
speaking, he did not know that God could afford 
to do without America. 

But there was another question — another probable 
issue : Shall we be divided ? No nation had long 
survived division and prospered. When the two 
tribes separated from the ten of Israel they were in- 
volved in war and bloodshed for ages. Our civili- 
zation spoke out against division. The spirit of 
the age was adverse to it. Only ignorance and vice 
could degrade and separate us. This had been pre- 
eminently demonstrated in the history of Babel, of 
the Indians, and the Africans. The first had the 
language of its people confused, the second had at 
least a thousand distinct and separate tribes, and Af- 
rica was cut up into numberless kingdoms, the mon- 
archs of which sat in a state of nudity on the sum- 
mits of earth mounds. Look to England, France, 
Germany and Russia, and view the fate of Poland 
and Hungary. Of what use could Poland be as a 
distinct nation, or of what use Hungary ? They had 



1 66 THE PEERLESS ORATOR. 



no literature, no science, no art to confer upon the 
world — they had no mission. Humanity could gain 
nothing by division. Why should it? With divis- 
ion would there be more liberty, more science, more 
literature, more elevation? Xo. Union enriched 
us, developed resources, built canals, constructed 
roads and factories. Vice and ignorance divided, 
hewed down, cut and destroyed the nation. If di- 
vided by hatred, there must be protracted war. There 
was no gulf to separate us — no line to be drawn be- 
tween the two sections. We had a common his- 
tory and a common mission to perform. You 
must remember the fate of old Israel., or the Gre- 
cian States : how Athens fell, and Sparta suc- 
cumbed. Before this nation shall be divided 
every house will offer up its last and dearest 
sacrifices : every son, and grandson of our homes 
will be freely offered to prevent division; and 
it were better to fight, if need be, for twenty 
years to secure lasting peace and a home for 
posterity. 

Another issue was suggested in the question, 
"Shall we have a new Government?" The South 
looks for this, and Jeff Davis, while yet a Senator of 
the United States, had uttered its intention on this 
point. A monarchy or a nobility, perhaps, might be 



PLATFORM SPEAKER. 167 



established. He did not know that we would object 
very much to be governed by a queen, and he sup- 
posed there would be no very general objection to 
being possessed of landed estates. Those who de- 
sired monarchy, however, had all Europe to choose 
from. The last issue which suggested itself was, 
that we might emerge from the conflict purer, 
stronger and more glorious than before. There 
must be a great purpose in the conflict, which must 
be to purify and to fit our nation for greater useful- 
ness. The metal shall be cleaner for the ordeal, and 
when the clouds shall have passed away our light 
shall be brighter than ever. Confirmatory of this 
view there were Providential indications. God has 
evidently been long preparing us for this war and 
since its commencement He had sustained us in it. 
The speaker next directed the attention of his vast 
audience to the preparatory indications, which can 
only be briefly referred to rather than stated. The 
Coast Survey had been completed after a struggle 
to have the appropriation made to provide for it, and 
when the war broke out we had the soundings of our 
coast and of almost every bay and river in the land. 
Ship building had long been making rapid improve- 
ment, and our clipper ships were the pride of the 
seas, and whenthe rebellionasserted itself we sent 



1 68 THE PEERLESS ORATOR. 



them to blockade the ports which had just been taken 
from us by the rebels. Thousands of miles of rail- 
road had just been finished when the war broke out, 
running from the Atlantic coast to the Mississippi, 
and traversing the whole mighty West. Our tele- 
graphic communication had been brought to perfec- 
tion in ample time to be available, mowing and reap- 
ing machines had taken the places of men who had 
gone to the war. The sewing machine had been used 
in no small way to make garments for one million 
soldiers in the field. As for money, God had treas- 
ured up in the mountains of California, of Nevada, 
of Idaho, Colorado, Arizona, Utah, gold and silver, 
more than sufficient to meet all the expenses of this 
war. There was no need of being under obligation 
to the Rothchilds in Europe, or to their agents in 
America, and he doubted not, the day was not far 
distant when our greenbacks would be gladly taken 
by the Rothchilds at par. 

The bishop related some amusing incidents con- 
nected with his visit to Brigham Young and his sev- 
eral wives. Brigham had endeavored to impress his 
mind that gold was a very inconvenient currency; 
that paper was much better. He then reviewed the 
events that had transpired during the war. The dan- 
ger of foreign intervention had for a long time hung 



PLATFORM SPEAKER. 169 



over us. That was in the dark days of the war, when 
England was putting on her strength to rejoice over 
the downfall of the republic; when Louis Napoleon 
was endeavoring to carry out old designs upon Cen- 
tral America and Mexico. The Merrimac had been 
disabled by the Monitor, and England and France 
became suddenly very neutral. The other powers 
of Europe had been kept busy with attention to Den- 
mark and Poland. And, in the meantime, victory 
crowned our armies at Vicksburg and Gettysburg. 
The Mississippi was opened from its source to its 
mouth, and the Fourth of July, 1863, was ushered in 
with sounds of gladness — with songs of joy. 

He next alluded to the signs of future success. He 
saw the speedy close of the war in terrible depre- 
ciation of the rebel currency, the scarcity of men and 
territory in the South ; the barbarity of the rebels to 
our prisoners ; and in the desertions and despondency 
of the rebel army. On our side he saw an abun- 
dance of men ; increasing men and territory ; he saw 
an inspiration in the spirit of our men, such as was 
exemplified in the battle of Lookout Mountain, 
where Hooker led his forces through and above the 
clouds, and planted the Stars and Stripes where men 
could see them and huzza when they looked toward 



lyo THE PEERLESS ORATOR. 



the heavens. Men who fought above the clouds had 
a right to look up when they saluted their flag. 

The results were already beginning to be seen in 
the vast emigration to our shores. But it was noth- 
ing compared to what it would be when peace was 
established once more throughout the land. The 
heroic men of all nations would come hither. The 
vast as yet untrod acres of the West would be culti- 
vated, the mines would be excavated, and factories 
would spring up all over the country. Slavery would 
be destroyed. He rejoiced in the existence of that 
new State, Western Virginia, and in the fact that 
Maryland, all honor to her, had declared in favor 
of a Free Constitution. Delaware and Missouri 
would follow (applause), and Kentucy would come 
last. The orator here described a galvanic battery 
such as might be constructed with power sufficient 
to melt iron with the quantity of electric fluid 
brought to bear, and applied the figure with sublime 
language to the act of Abraham Lincoln, on the ist 
of January, 1863, melting the fetters from the limbs 
of three millions of slaves. 

What should be done with the Africans among 
us? As for the speaker, he was in favor of doing 
with them what Jeff. Davis asked of the nation, "to 
be let alone." In this Africa was receiving a bap- 



PLATFORM SPEAKER. 171 



tism of blood, and would yet be regenerated through 
her sons, who were now proving themselves worthy 
of their freedom — worthy of their right to the full 
exercise of all rights and immunities of manhood. 

The reverend orator concluded by a soul-stirring 
apostrophe to the Stars and Stripes which was too 
sublime to permit its effect to be portrayed in print. 
The sublimity of the spectacle, as the bishop caught 
up the flag which lay on the table near him, declar- 
ing that his mother had taught him to> love it, was 
such as will not soon be forgotten by those who wit- 
nessed it and heard the eloquent words. 

The audience then gave three rousing cheers for 
the President of the United States; three more for 
the Union, and three for Bishop Simpson. 



i;2 THE PEERLESS ORATOR. 



CHAPTER XIII. 
Changes of Mind. 

Until the human mind is perfect in its pro- 
phetic wisdom, change will be a necessity in 
man, in society and in all forms of organization. 
And such a perfect condition of the mind of 
man is unthinkable and Utopian. Carlyle was 
correct when he said, "The thinking minds of 
all nations call for change." But Confucius is 
not quite so clear when he said, "They must 
often change who would be constant in happi- 
ness or wisdom". And it is an abrupt but cur- 
rent Spanish proverb which says, "A wise man 
changes his mind often, a fool never." 

But it cannot be said of Simpson what Dryden 
said of another, 

"Stiff opinions, always in the wrong 

Was everything by starts, and nothing long." 

When Bishop Simpson had decided to change 
from medicine to the ministry, he seems never 
to have entertained the thought of returning to 
its practice. No such thought is found on record. 
But he was offered strong inducements not to 
go into the ministry but into the law, but three 



CHANGES OF MIND. 



173 



things prevented this. First, he believed his 
voice was too feeble; second, he feared the prac- 
tice of law, especially in the criminal courts, 
would tend to weaken or smother his conscience ; 
but third, his occasional convictions from child- 
hood, re-enforced by the wish and judgment of 
his mother that he ought to preach the Gospel. 

A prominent lawyer who heard him in one of 
his great pulpit efforts in after years said, "Ah, 
would he not have been a grand success before 
a jury?" And he was greatly admired by men 
of all parties, yet party politics seemed to have 
no attraction as a field for his exploits and no 
one could listen to him without being pro- 
foundly impressed that the Christian ministry 
was the richest, the greatest, the most all-con- 
suming theme which could occupy human 
thought. And this was the sublime keynote in 
all of his addresses to the young men who were 
about to take upon themselves the vows of the 
Christian ministry. No idle or jocular word was 
ever uttered on such occasions. And while in 
the educational work he felt that he was work- 
ing in a large and important division of the 
Lord's vineyard. And when in the editorial 
chair he felt that he was addressing a larger 



i74 THE PEERLESS ORATOR. 



audience than could gather about any pulpit 
in church or grove. And of all men, whether 
as an educator or an editor, still it must be in 
truth said of him that preaching was his all mas- 
tering passion. With Ezekiel he had a foregleam 
of the onflowing waters of life over the desert 
places of humanity until life, life, spiritual life is 
visible everywhere. With Isaiah his vision 
swept a wider field of the future kingdom than 
the most cyclopean eye of the modern seer. And 
with the apostolic warrior he girded on the 
whole armor of God and never laid it off or quit 
the field until he had fought a good fight and 
finished his course. 

No sooner was Bishop Simpson elected to the 
episcopal office and was settled in Pittsburg the 
same year, 1852, than he started the project of 
erecting a fine pewed church on Penn avenue 
between Seventh and Eighth streets, which was 
dedicated in 1855, the finest church then in Meth- 
odism. The Pittsburgh Female College, which 
the bishop had been largely instrumental in es- 
tablishing, opened its first term in the basement 
of that church October 1st, 1855. Among those 
associated in these two enterprises were Allen 
Kramer, H. D. Sellers, M. D., Alexander Brad- 



CHANGES OF MIND. 175 



ley, Samuel Kier, J. B. Canfield, F. D. Sellers, 
W. M. Wright, N. Holmes and others. Some 
persons knowing the bishop's previous views 
against pewed churches criticised him for this 
change of opinion. 

Now while these things indicated a change of 
mind as it respects church architecture and 
church order and government, yet they show a 
wise and progressive spirit. And yet as to doc- 
trine he was never even tinctured with modern 
liberalism or higher criticism. He spent no time 
in the pulpit on textual or other criticism. He 
preached no mere ethical gospel, but a redemp- 
tion by sacrifice and a salvation from all sin, al- 
though he was competent successfully to grap- 
ple with the most critical scholars. He could not 
be a narrow man as he had been associated with 
broad minded men in politics, statesmanship, re- 
ligion and philanthropy all his life. He was as 
near a perfect seer as the times ever produced 
and from his lofty pedestal he seemed to sweep 
the entire horizon of the past and of the future, 
and changed when change was needed. 

By the unanimous request of the Philadelphia 
Preachers' meeting Bishop Simpson delivered an 
address on Class-meeting in old St. George's 



176 THE PEERLESS ORATOR. 



Church, February 20, 1868, to a large audience. 
In an unusually rapid manner among many 
other interesting things he said: 

"If you ask what is the place of the class- 
meeting in comparison with other services, I 
answer, it is of vast importance; yet it is not a 
divine institution in the sense of its mode being 
prescribed in the Holy Scriptures; and as such 
it is not so important as attending the public 
ministry of the Word. That is a duty expressly 
enjoined in the Word of God. We must not 
forsake the assembling of ourselves together as 
the manner of some is. Christians are to meet 
regularly in the public congregation to hear the 
Word of God, for that Word is spirit and life — a 
source of joy and comfort. Nor is it equal in its 
arrangement to private prayer — that is directly 
enjoined in the word of God as a means of grace. 
We are to enter into our closet and pray in 
secret, that our Father, who seeth in secret, may 
reward us openly. These institutions of public 
worship and of private prayer are particularly 
dwelt upon or specified in the Word of God as 
Christian duties. We do not claim for the class- 
meeting this specific divine direction. There 
may be a church of the living God with no class- 



CHANGES OF MIND. 177 



meeting. There have been such churches in all 
ages; there are such churches today. 

"If we have deep religious emotions and 
thoughts we will wish to speak of them. 

"Some men have doubted whether there can 
be any long, continuous thoughts without words. 
Certainly our utterances act back upon our 
thoughts; thoughts are very imperfect unuttered. 
We think more as we give utterance to our 
thoughts. You remember Bunyan's modest de- 
scription of why he wrote so much. He had first 
a thought, and uttered it, then another thought 
came, and he wrote that, and so he went on. If 
Bunyan had never begun to write his Pilgrim's 
Progress, he never would have stood beside 
Christian, and seen him, as he gazed on the land 
of Beulah, or as he stood at the edge of the 
river, and looked clear over and saw the shining 
ones upon the other side. 

"The sun's rays gather in the face of yonder 
moon, to be reflected back to our earth. God 
sends sometimes a great baptism on you, or on 
me, possibly, not so much for ourselves as for 
those around us. I am inclined to think, indeed, 
that that baptism spoken of in the Scripture, 
where John the Baptist, speaking of Christ, says, 



178 THE PEERLESS ORATOR. 



'He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and 
with fire' — that baptism of fire, I am inclined to 
think — though I utter not this dogmatically, but 
it has been a conviction with me for years — that 
baptism of fire is the outward power, the out- 
ward manifestation which God gives oftentimes 
to the members of His Church, for the purpose 
of acting on the world around them. Such are 
the peculiar influences of a revival meeting; 
such are the peculiar baptisms for which we can 
sometimes scarcely account, but they are sources 
of conviction to the hearts of the people, and 
those who come in recognize the fact that God 
is among His people of a truth." 

His views here expressed were very liberal 
and in later years he modified them still more. 
He well knew that new times demand new 
measures and new men. The world advances 
and the times outgrow the laws that in our 
father's day were best. 

Bishop Simpson was wise enough to change 
his mind when evidence sufficient to warrant a 
change was produced. He was at first as we 
have said opposed to pewed churches but yielded 
when in certain cases it seemed expedient to 
have them. He was at first opposed to lay dele- 



CHANGES OF MIND. 179 



gation but when the demand became so nearly 
universal and forceful, he yielded very sincerely 
and led the way to victory. It must in fairness, 
however, be said that the laymen had modified 
their request, omitting lay delegation in the an- 
nual conference. Down to i860, the bishops as 
a board in their reports to the general confer- 
ences had not expressed themselves on the sub- 
ject but then they said, "We are of the opinion 
that lay delegation might be introduced in one 
form into the general conference with safety 
and perhaps advantage, that form a separate 
house." A vote was taken by the ministers and 
laymen of the whole church, in 1861, and it was 
voted down by both orders by a large majority. 
Bishop Simpson was at that time also in favor 
of two houses in the general conference, and 
from then on he threw all of his energy in favor 
of lay delegation in the general conference but 
leaving the subject of the two houses for future 
determination. It has been supposed that con- 
servatism is the true policy of the Episcopal 
Board and therefore they seldom advocate radi- 
cal changes or progressive measures, and hence 
the position taken openly by Bishop Simpson 
was severely criticised. He, however, made his 



i8o THE PEERLESS ORATOR. 



first address in St. Paul's Church, New York, 
at a convention held May 13th and 14th, 1863. 
This was a long and carefully prepared address, 
as he well knew every line must pass severe 
scrutiny. A few extracts is all our space will 
permit. He said, "I believe that there will always 
be periods of agitation and threatened schism 
until the laity are admitted into the highest as- 
semblies of our church. Is there any organized 
government that is safe with a single legisla- 
tive body, composed of a single order of men of 
the same employments and chosen in the same 
way? Allow me a word or two personally. I 
had thought upon this subject for years, I had 
looked it over until my mind was satisfied and 
I expressed it to my most intimate friends that 
lay representation was the greatest want of the 
church." This address was delivered also in 
Pittsburg in Smithfield Street Church to a large 
audience, and as I remember great was the en- 
thusiasm. He delivered the same address sub- 
stantially in nearly all the large cities and it is 
believed he did more than any one man to carry 
the measure so that the laymen took their seats 
in the general conference of 1872. 




Sir George Williams, 
Founder of Y. M. C. A. 



CHANGES OF MIND. 181 



I remember when he had an engagement to 
deliver an address before the Young Men's 
Christian Association of New York. The date 
was drawing near and yet the lecture was not 
prepared. Knowing that he had many things on 
his mind I almost daily reminded him of the 
date, but procrastination as he often said was 
the most persistent fault of his life. Finally on 
the day before the address was to be delivered 
he took one of the stenographers we had em- 
ployed and went into an adjoining room and 
walking the floor with a rapid pace he dictated 
aloud the lecture. As was his usual custom, he 
had been occasionally thinking out the main 
points of his lecture and when the time came 
he picked up his manuscript and started for 
New York. On his return he told me that he 
started in to read his address, but it being so 
unnatural and feeling his freedom hampered, he 
stepped out from his manuscript and then found 
himself again. 

Towards the later years of his life the bishop 
came to feel a little distrust of his physical and 
mental powers, I think. He was engaged to de- 
liver a course of lectures before the divinity stu- 
dents of Yale College, between 1878-1879. As 



1 82 THE PEERLESS ORATOR. 



these could hardly be popular audiences he came 
to the time with some trepidation and felt that 
he could not trust himself to deliver so many 
addresses extemporaneously and hence deter- 
mined to read them, and when they were ended 
he felt greatly relieved. The lectures were dic- 
tated to a stenographer and while in the de- 
livery of them his audiences increased to the 
close, and the newspapers commended them very 
highly. Yet he said it was a severe strain on 
him, being contrary to his life-long method of 
public speaking. His theory of preaching as 
therein set forth was not so broad as some have 
taught, but thoroughly evangelical and based 
solidly on the New Testament plan, and the 
method of delivering the message was what he 
termed the direct method, bringing into intense 
focalization the voice, the eye, the hand, in a 
word the entire man, and so of course the ex- 
temporaneous method he regarded as the most 
successful. 

In September, 1881, a delegated General Con- 
ference of all the Methodist bodies in the world 
was held in London, and Bishop Simpson had 
been given the distinguished honor of preaching 
the opening sermon, and his text was those 



CHANGES OF MIND. 183 



somewhat mystical words in the first verses of 
John's Gospel. I fancy the bishop found his 
text not just to his usual liking, and contrary 
to his custom it was delivered from manuscript, 
not daring to trust himself, as he had not fully 
recovered from his serious attack in the pulpit 
at San Francisco in 1880 when about to visit the 
missions in China and Japan, and which was 
abandoned. And although his sermon in Wes- 
ley's Chapel, London, was in the presence of an 
immense audience, as delegates from all parts of 
the world were there, it was well prepared and 
comprehensive, yet it lacked that directness, en- 
thusiasm and uplifting power of his former ad- 
dresses, especially as they had heard him in 
Brunswick Chapel and Burslam in former years. 

In all these changes it will be observed that 
there were none in essentials and fundamentals 
in church doctrine or polity. We must not for- 
get that he was most carefully instructed by his 
parents and especially by his faithful and intelli- 
gent uncle, and that in early life he came under 
the influence of some of the greatest minds of 
the church, notably, Dr. Charles Elliott, Homer 
J. Clark, H. B. Bascom and others. He had seen 
many go off to extremes in holiness and some 



i8 4 THE PEERLESS ORATOR. 



others into fanaticism of the most extravagant 
kinds and yet like that text he loved so well he 
could say none of these things moved me. And 
were it prudent I could mention some names of 
persons with whom he pleaded long not to go 
away after strange doctrines. He preached a 
universal atonement but never a universal sal- 
vation as a necessary consequence. He preached 
the love of God but never to the exclusion of 
justice and wrath and future eternal punishment. 
He preached a Divine Christ but never in the 
mystical sense that there is the divine in man 
but that he was very God and truly man. 

He never changed his party politics or national 
patriotism. He was at first an antislavery Whig 
but they united with the Free Soilers and formed 
the Republican party and he became a Repub- 
lican and so remained ever after. He was not a 
prohibition party man but the cause of tem- 
perance and abstinence never had a purer ex- 
ample or a stronger defender. He had seen 
the beginning of the degrading saloon business 
and had seen its rapid progress over this fair 
land but he lived to see the beginning of its 
decline and its utter destruction. Regarding it 
as the greatest social evil, a powerful enemy to 



CHANGES OF MIND. 185 



the church and a hateful menace to civilized life, 
he often expressed himself with strong emphasis 
on the deceptive arguments pleaded in its favor. 

And as the years came on he did not change 
in his love for the young. And while all his life 
long he had such a profound veneration for the 
aged yet he never lost his affection for young 
people. In an address in London in 1858 before 
the Young Men's Christian Association he said 
that early in life he had resolved to devote his 
energies to the interest of the youth everywhere. 
How natural and perfectly proper it seemed in 
him to kiss his intimate friends when meeting 
with them or parting from them. 

It is written that Havelock said that he would 
not change his opinions or practice though it 
rained garters and coronets. But when on the 
turbulent sea on his way to India he changed 
from being a worldly military officer to become a 
devout Christian soldier. Similar changes and 
such as we have noted in Bishop Simpson indi- 
cate not a vacillating but a progressive mind 
always striving to attain the best and highest 
possible. Thus we may see how, 

That men may rise on stepping stones 
Of their dead selves to higher things. 



1 86 THE PEERLESS ORATOR. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

Sunset Hours. 

At different times in his life, Bishop Simpson 
had occasions of severe sickness and mostly of 
the same kind, great feverishness. It was not 
an uncommon thing for him to say he was weak 
and feverish on his long and perilous voyages, 
having also weak eyes and often spots before 
his sight. This was especially true of his epis- 
copal tour across the Isthmus and up to Port- 
land, Oregon, and afterwards in Texas where his 
traveling companion was the Methodist martyr 
preacher, Anthony Bewley. It is perhaps true 
that he never fully recovered from the serious 
attack of malarial fever contracted on the lower 
Danube river on his way in 1857 to the Holy 
Land. He was carried from the ship at Beyrout 
and was considered in a most critical condition 
for more than two weeks. He finally returned 
home to Pittsburg but was in very poor health 
for a year or more. Although occasionally hold- 
ing conferences he did not preach any until in 
July, 1859, m which year his family removed to 
Evanston, Illinois. In i860 he said his swelling 



SUNSET HOURS. 187 



feet gave him much trouble but from that time 
onward until September, 1880, he seemed to 
have recovered much of his former vigor. His 
services during the Civil War were a severe tax 
on his strength, and then came the agitation of 
the Lay Delegation question, both of which en- 
gaged all his energies. He had 

A clear bright eye 

That can pierce the sky, 

With the strength of an eagle's vision, 

And a steady brain 

That could bear the strain, 

And the shock of the world's collision. 

In the meantime, however, he had occasional 
breaks in his health. On his return overland 
from California, he became so exhausted as that 
he was able to preach only once a day and he 
seemed to think his work almost done. In 1863 
he removed with his family to Philadelphia 
where he died. In this year on his way to the 
Detroit Conference, he suffered a collapse, with 
chills and fever, but in five days he was riding 
on a bed in a stage eighteen miles to Jackson, 
Michigan. His greatest breakdown came in 
September, 1880, in San Francisco, when he and 
Mrs. Simpson were about to sail for Japan and 
China, hoping to reach London in time for the 



1 88 THE PEERLESS ORATOR. 



Ecumenical Conference, just one year from that 
date. He collapsed in the pulpit, and was unable 
to finish his sermon. He was threatened with a 
congestive chill, and was removed to a near-by 
home. From this again he rallied and during 
the first part of 1881 went forward, doing his 
work much as before. 

With weary hand, yet steadfast will, 

In old age as in youth, 
Thy Master found thee sowing still 

The good seed of His truth. 

Yet his close friends observed that his voice 
did not have that metallic resonance as in former 
times, neither was his step so elastic, nor his 
memory so retentive or accurate. Yet it was 
during this year that he visited Europe and de- 
livered that famous memorial address on the 
death of President Garfield in Exeter Hall, Lon- 
don, and also the sermon at the opening of the 
Ecumenical Conference in Wesley's Chapel, both 
of which events I have referred to elsewhere. 
But many felt there was the absence of the mag- 
netic power of former years and realized that the 
opal is but sand without the flash of fire. 

His last sermon was delivered in Boston at 
the dedication of the Peoples Church. His text 
was one of his favorites : "For unto us a child is 



SUNSET HOURS. 189 



born, unto us a son is given," and in his perora- 
tion the old fire seemed to flame up anew on 
the altar of his soul, and he exclaimed : "I think 
I see the light shining now on the hill-top. 
Christ's kingdom is coming and the song shall 
arise, 'Hallelujah, the Lord God Omnipotent 
reigneth.' " 

Yet even then I think he could have said: 

Time has laid his hand 
Upon my heart gently, not smiting it; 
But as a harper lays his open palm 
Upon his harp to deaden its vibrations. 

The General Conference met in Philadelphia 
May, 1884, when the bishop was found to be in 
very feeble health. He presided at the opening 
session but took no further part in the proceed- 
ings. His appearance now and then in the con- 
ference room was always the occasion for hon- 
orable and affectionate manifestations. He 
closed the conference with this pathetic address : 
"Brethren of the General Conference, at this 
closing moment it is fitting I should give utter- 
ance only to a very few words. I wish to ex- 
press my regret that I have not been permitted 
to mingle more intimately with members of this 
body during their session in this place. But I 
have been very much gratified with such associa- 



THE PEERLESS ORATOR. 



tion as I have been permitted to enjoy, and I 
desire to express the pleasure I have felt in wit- 
nessing occasionally your deliberations. It has 
been my privilege to see a number of General 
Conferences. My first was forty years ago in 
the city of New York. Wise and great and good 
men were there of whom only one I think re- 
mains in this body, Dr. Trimble. I believe he 
and Dr. Curry are the only two members who 
were present in 1848 that still remain. I have 
seen the composition of the body change from 
time to time, and I want to say this that my 
conviction is that there never has assembled a 
more distinguished, a more able, and a more 
cultured body of delegates in the Methodist 
Episcopal Church than now. It is true that there 
is a larger proportion of youthful members than 
we have had in former General Conferences, but 
it is exceedingly gratifying to me as I feel that 
the shadows are gathering around me, and 
others, to see young men truly cultured and de- 
voted to the cause of Christ able to come for- 
ward and take the reins of the Church and guide 
it so successfully onward. May God be gra- 
cious to them and make them greater than the 
fathers. I desire also to say that I have been 



A gift of $5.00 entitled everyone to this medal during the 
Centennial of American Methodism, 1866. 



SUNSET HOURS. 191 



pleased with the results of your deliberations. 
While there is a diversity of opinion upon some 
subjects, and must always be in a body of this 
kind, yet I think that the results of your delib- 
erations have been for the good of the church 
and for the glory of God. Some very important 
measures I think have been enacted and I be- 
lieve the church will go forward with increased 
strength and power from this time. And now, 
brethren, a word personally. I have no words 
to declare the gratitude of my heart for the 
many courtesies and the kindly utterances you 
have made. They will be embalmed in my heart 
forever. Whatever the future may be, whatever 
of time and strength I may have, all belong to 
the cause of Christ. And may we go forward 
from this time, dear brethren, to try to do more 
vigorous work than we have ever done. May 
we have the spirit of deep consecration. May 
we pray for a more powerful outpouring of the 
Holy Spirit. May we look for revivals all over 
our country until multiplied thousands shall be 
converted to God. And now, dear brethren, in 
closing this service and bidding you farewell, I 
pray that God may be with you and protect you 
in your journeyings to your respective homes. 



THE PEERLESS ORATOR. 



May you find your families in peace and safety 
and prosperity, and may God pour upon you the 
riches of His grace." He then pronounced the 
benediction and the session closed, and in less 
than two weeks his life on earth was closed with 
the benedictions of millions of people resting 
upon him. 

I shall not here reproduce the eloquent trib- 
utes paid to his memory at the time of the 
funeral simply making one quotation from the 
address of Bishop Foster. 

Bishop Foster spoke at his funeral of these 
visits to the general conference, as follows : "His 
pallor frightened us and his tremulous voice 
and emaciated form filled us with distressing ap- 
prehensions." He lived only about two weeks 
after the close of the conference, dying at his 
home in Philadelphia at 8:40 in the morning of 
June 1 8th, 1884. Had he lived three days longer 
he would have finished three score and ten 
years. His last intelligible and distinct utter- 
ance was, "My Savior, my Savior". 

What a wonderful experience he had. His 
public life fell in with most thrilling events of 
church and state. I loved to sit and hear him 
draw from thence, 



SUNSET HOURS. 



"Sweet recollections of his journey past 

A journey crowned with blessings to the last". 

Always a little so but in the later years his 
form was much stooped and considering his 
emaciation and remembering his majestic ap- 
pearance in other years it was almost pitiable to 
behold his bending form but still he could say in 
his sublime faith: 

"I find Earth not grey but rosy, 

Heaven not grim but fair of hue, 
Do I stoop? I pluck a posy 

Do I stand and stare? All is blue." 

But at last he 

Gave his body to that pleasant country's earth 
And his pure soul unto his Captain Christ. 

We are inclined to say as Shakespeare says of 
Julius Caesar: 

The last of all the Romans, fare thee well. 
And from all lands will continue to go forth 
"As many farewells as be stars in heaven" 

And thus I will continue to say that, 

"Parting is such sweet sorrow 

That I shall say good night, till it be morrow." 



194 



THE PEERLESS ORATOR. 



CHAPTER XV. 
Personal Tribute. 

How can I sing of thee, 

In notes which suit thy praise? 
Who knows the melody 

Which I would gladly raise? 

My heart, it doth o'erflow 
Too much to sing with ease, 

But lines may faintly show, 
Like twigs of giant trees. 

Thou dost not need my song, 
For thou art truly crowned, 

Amid the sceptered throng, 
High on immortal ground. 

Thy earthly fame, how great! 
It reaches o'er the sea, 
Where mitered men, sedate, 
Have heard in ecstasy. 

W T hence came this morning star 
Which fixed the gaze of men? 

From out the East so far 
Where wrote prophetic men? 

No, no; a western sky 

Looked down upon his birth, 
Where mother's lullaby 

Was sweetly sung with mirth. 

No gilded home was this, 

With paintings rich and rare, 

But here he dwelt in bliss, 
Content with humble fare. 




Liberty St. M. E. Church, 
Pittsburg, Pa. 



PERSONAL TRIBUTE. 



As tallest grain doth grow 
So near the shadowed wall, 

As from the cloud so low 
The bolts of thunder fall. 

A skillful hand was there 
To train this vine to climb; 

The trellis though was bare, 
In that uncultured time. 

But he had fixed his eye, 
Like the eagle on the sun, 

And upward soaring high, 

What heights he grandly won! 

He gleaned in halls of art; 

And, circling 'round the globe, 
He culled from every mart, 

And dug from deepest lode. 

The nation rocks in storm, 
And shudders deep within, 

And hope is rudely shorn, 
So wild the battle's din. 

He flies from West to East; 

From East again to West; 
He spurns the richest feast, 

And never knows a rest. 

He speaks of Lookout Mount, 
Where cannon roared so loud, 

Where men of thousands count 
Did fight above the cloud. 

Fight on, brave men, he said, 
As ye have won that height 

While clouds a-downward fled; 
This is prophetic light. 

See! see! the banner there! 

'Tis planted on the rock! 
It waves in golden air! 

Defies rebellious shock. 



THE PEERLESS ORATOR. 



Our country one shall be, 
Despite the traitor's hand, 

From East to placid sea, 
From frost to glinting sand. 

But on that patriot heart, 
A thought still pressed it down; 

If God is on our part, 

Then let us fear His frown. 

Sweet peace to us will come 
When we have learned to trust; 

And all our laws become 
The synonym of Just. 

Then break the chains! he cries, 
From off your brother's hands; 

Let freedom's anthems rise 
As burst the bondmen's bands. 

O! faithful, sovereign man! 

Who holds the helm of State; 
God placed thee in the van, 

He said, to turn the awful fate. 

With steady hand now write; 

It is divine decree 
From out the throne of light, — 

This nation must be free. 

The Sovereign heard his voice, 
The Proclamation signed, 

And land and sea rejoice, 

While heaven and earth combined. 

Thou prophet, priest, divine, 
Thy praise will ne'er grow old 

Till living Freedmen's line 
Shall end in deathly mold. 

Ay, more; till latest sun 

Is quenched in western wave; 

Still more, thy fame begun 
Shall dig for time a grave. 



PERSONAL TRIBUTE. 



Thou livest most of all 
In that enraptured theme 

Where men and angels fall 
And cry redeem, redeem! 

The cross! the cross! the cross. 

As thou didst lift it high, 
All else to man is loss, 

Oh look! and never die! 

I see that eye so bright, 

That face is wreathed in smile, 
That grand majestic height, 

A heavenly form awhile. 

I hear thy voice so clear, 
'Tis fragrant from above; 

I see an angel's tear 
Upon thy cheek of love. 

High flows the gracious tide, 
Men sway in heavenly air ; 

All earth seems cast aside, 
They feast on kingly fare. 

O herald, flame of fire! 

Out from thee gleamed a light, 
Much brighter than the pyre 

From him on Sinai's height. 

As rocks the sunbeams store, 
As flowers get their hue, 

So with thy precious lore 
This world is made anew. 

Thy mission o'er? nay, nay; 

But from a loftier plain, 
And now in wider sway, 

How vast is thy domain! 

As here this side the brook, 
We cast a heavenward gaze, 

He mounts the skies; O look, 
And see the chariot blaze! 



THE PEERLESS ORATOR. 

As up he grandly rode, 

Celestial gates arise! 
May fall his matchless robe 

On us below the skies. 

E. M. W. 



Simpson's Home in Philadelphia 
Where he died. 



SOME POST MORTEM HONORS. 199 



CHAPTER XVI. 

Some Post Mortem Honors 

Dr. Abel Stevens, as yet the ablest historian 
of Methodism, says of Bishop Simpson, "He be- 
came the greatest Methodist preacher of his 
time. ,, And Dr. Buckley in his history of Meth- 
odism calls him "The peerless orator". In the 
Episcopal address in 1888, the bishops say of 
him, "For half a century he served the church 
as pastor, educator and bishop, and by his purity 
of life, his tireless zeal, his surpassing eloquence, 
his broad catholicity, his intense loyalty and 
pronounced patriotism, acquired fame and influ- 
ence seldom attained in the Christian ministry 
and never exceeded in our denomination." It 
would be easy to greatly extend these compli- 
mentary notices. 

The remains, with those deceased of his family, 
now rest in the beautiful Mausoleum erected in 
West Laurel Hill Cemetery, Philadelphia. A 
Bronze Statue on a marble pedestal was erected 
to his memory on the grounds of the Home for 
the Aged, Philadelphia, April 2nd, 1902. And 
on it with little modification might be inscribed 



2oo THE PEERLESS ORATOR. 



what Lord Tennyson wrote of Sir John Frank- 
lin and is now on the cenotaph in Westminster 
Abbey, "Not here! the White North has thy 
bones, and thou heroic soul, art passing on thy 
happier voyage now toward no earthly pole." 
A memorial Lectern was dedicated in Grace 
Methodist Episcopal Church, Harrisburg, Pa., 
March 12th, 1905. It was the gift of the pastor 
Dr. J. Wesley Hill. In Wesley's Chapel, Lon- 
don, is a life sized Portrait Window of the 
bishop contributed by American Methodists and 
highly prized by the Wesleyan Methodists. In 
the Memorial Hall of the Methodist Theological 
Institution in Evanston, Illinois, is a beautiful 
Triple Memorial Window in memory of the 
bishop who was once president of its faculty. 
The last inscription is: "We conquered by love. 
Matthew Simpson, Bishop. 1852-1884." 

And many will say of him what Byron said of 
his friend. He 

"Sighed that nature formed one such man 
And broke the die in moulding Sheridan." 

Dr. Kelly, Editor of the Methodist Review, 
says : 

"The first of Methodist bishops to be statued 
in bronze is doubtless the fittest of Methodist 



SOME POST MORTEM HONORS. 201 



bishops to be thus monumented. Methodism 
is rich in having such a leader to commemorate ; 
Methodism is wise in having the good sense to 
commemorate him so fittingly. Taking him alto- 
gether — his extraordinary gifts, his sustained 
and quenchless zeal, his unequaled fame as a 
preacher, his rare qualities for leadership, his 
far-seeing statesmanship, his national eminence 
and influence, the ardor and force and wisdom 
of his career, his unsullied record — and where in 
American Methodism is there a more exalted 
character, a more influential life, a more illus- 
trious name? A eulogist of Alexander Hamil- 
ton once said: 'The name of Hamilton would 
have honored Greece in the days of Aristides.' 
Surely the name of Simpson would have honored 
the church in any of its branches and in any one 
of the Christian centuries." 

At the funeral of Bishop Janes in New York 
on September 18, 1876, Simpson spoke as follows, 
and he had the same elements to a large degree : 

"My last interview with him was on the day 
of the funeral of his precious wife. I have not 
since seen him. On that occasion I spent some 
two hours of the afternoon in his society, and, 



202 THE PEERLESS ORATOR. 



while his soul was oppressed with deep afflic- 
tion, when we turned in conversation for a mo- 
ment from his personal bereavement, his heart 
was on the Church and its interests — on its gen- 
eral outlook, on the coming conferences he hoped 
to attend, on the probable revival of the work 
of God, on our missionary field, and on the 
anxiety he had for the enlargement of the work. 
His soul seemed to be breaking out with energy, 
above even the grief he felt in consequence ol 
his own affliction, on behalf of the interests of 
the Church of Christ. The last time I took his 
hand was just beside the casket as he sat on 
the side of it, and I was compelled to say, Fare- 
well. A tear was in his eye and on his cheek, 
but he sat with all the calmness and placidness 
of manner that was so uniformly his. And I 
can only think of him today as he sat beside 
that casket, with a hope of immortality, a beau- 
tiful trust in the resurrection of the dead. And 
little did I think that so soon we would be called 
to mourn him. But he has gone. 

"His character has been analyzed today very 
beautifully; and all his characteristics existed in 
force — his clear and vigorous intellect, his very 
quick perception, his logical powers, his vivid 



SOME POST MORTEM HONORS. 203 



imagination, that gave him grasp of all surround- 
ing circumstances, and his deep piety, bringing 
all to the foot of the cross. But I believe, after 
all, the great and striking feature in Bishop 
Janes' character was the strength of his will. 
He had one of the most indomitable wills that 
I think ever was placed in a man's bosom, fitting 
him for any work or for any enterprise. If he 
had been a General he would have been like 
Charles the Twelfth or Napoleon, sparing neither 
himself nor his army. As a statesman he would 
have led his country forward without regard to 
health. But the manifestation of his will was 
modified by his loving spirit, his deep devotion, 
his tender regard for the feelings, the reputation, 
the interests, and the honor of his brethren ; and 
only occasionally did you see its outbursts, at 
some moment of decision, some moment requir- 
ing energy. Then, just as if, from the bosom of 
some placid flood, where you never suspected 
winds, or lightning flash, or thunder blast, there 
came an outburst that almost startled you; his 
whole nature would rise at once, and you knew 
you were in the presence of a master mind, when 
Bishop Janes was aroused and he displayed the 
power of his will. But this will was manifested 



204 THE PEERLESS ORATOR. 



more in his government of himself. He con- 
trolled his feelings; he was naturally quick and 
impulsive, but in all perplexity and trial he was 
affectionate and tender. The strength of his 
will made him consecrate his whole powers to 
the Church. In his journeys I have known him 
travel night after night and preach day after 
day. Where it was supposed appointments could 
not be reached, I have known him to hire 
wagons, and where they could not convey us he 
would procure horses, and ride the whole hours 
of the night through, to fill his appointments 
the next morning. I never knew a man who 
spared himself so little, and was so determined 
to meet all engagements that he had made. ,, 

Yet I will not say of the church of today what 
Shakespeare said of Rome, "Rome, thou hast 
lost the breed of noble bloods." Great men will 
appear whenever they are demanded by the 
times. 

When I think of the influence of this great 
orator on the walls of Zion I can but recall how 
that as the enemy were pressing hard around 
the walls of Troy and hearing the noise, Achilles 
came out on the ramparts, unarmored, and 
simply uttered a thunderous shout and the 




Bronze Statue and Monument, 
Philadelphia. 



SOME POST MORTEM HONORS. 205 



enemy fell back in utter dismay. So I doubt not 
this plain Gospel warrior often sent confusion 
into the ranks of the enemy of our country 
and of our Christ. 

I do not wonder that Alexander the Great as 

he stood at the tomb of Achilles said, "Oh, happy 

youth, to have a Homer as the publisher of thy 

valor." But none can be quite as conscious as 

myself that I am not the Homer to this Greater 

Achilles. But perhaps it may be true: 

Others shall sing the song, 
Others shall right the wrong; 
Finish what I begin 
And all I fail to win 
What matter I or they, 
Mine or another's day, 
So the right word be said, 
And life the sweeter made. 

But still I say — 

I love thee with the breath, 

Smiles, tears of all my life; and if God choose 

I shall but love thee better after death. 

The following popular poem was written by 
Lord Tennyson in his eighty-first year and a few 
days before his death he requested that it should 
be put at the end of all editions of his poems. It 
seems also a fitting end to this brief biography 
of an illustrious life. 



2o6 THE PEERLESS ORATOR. 



Sunset and evening star, 

And one clear call for me! 
And may there be no moaning of the har, 

When I put out to sea. 

But such a tide as moving seems asleep, 

Too full for sound and foam, 
When that which drew from out the boundless deep, 

Turns again home. 

Twilight and evening bell, 

And after that the dark! 
And may there be no sadness of farewell, 

When I embark; 

For tho' from out our bourne of Time and Place, 

The flood may bear me far, 
I hope to see my Pilot face to face 

When I have crost the bar. 

So to my young friends whom I have kept 
in view in writing this little work let me say 
finally : 

"At morn find time for just a Pisgah-view 
Of my friend's Land of Promise." 

And for myself I can say : 

"But beauty seen is never lost 

God's colors all are fast. 
The glory of this sunset heaven 
Into my soul has passed." 



Jr'BRARY OF 



CONGRESS 




